Moscow - Jailed former Yukos executive Vasily Aleksanyan, in need of treatment for AIDS, was freed on bail after along legal fight for his release, Russian prison authorities said Wednesday.

Aleksanyan paid a 50-million-ruble (1.8 million dollars) bail on Tuesday and was freed from detention, a spokesman for the Federal Prison Service told news agency Ria-Novosti.

The report confirmed a statement by Aleksanyan's lawyer Yelena Lvova, who said the guard had been taken from his hospital ward Tuesday and he had been visited by relatives.

She did not say whether Aleksanian, 36, would leave the hospital.

Russian court ordered Aleksanyan's release earlier this month, but drew criticism for setting a high bail.

"Aleksanyan's father conveys his gratitude to all of those people who made it possible to collect the funds," Lvova said.

Private donors who contributed to Aleksanyan's bail remain anonymous.

The case by Aleksanyan's lawyers against prison authorities alleging he had not received treatment for over one year in detention drew outrage and sparked a campaign for his release.

Several appeals were brought before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Aleksanyan, diagnosed with AIDS a few months after his detention in April 2006, was moved to a clinic in February, but was kept under 24-hour guard.

He has been rendered nearly blind by the disease and was operated to remove a tumour in his liver, his lawyers say.

Aleksanyan, a lawyer for Russian oil firm Yukos, was charged with embezzlement and money laundering in a wider legal assault against shareholders and top management of the firm.

Jailed Yukos chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion in a Siberian prison, went on hunger strike in solidarity with Aleksanyan.

Critics charged the legal crackdown on Yukos was the mainstay of a state-sponsored campaign by former president Vladimir Putin to reassert state-control over key sectors of the economy and sideline potential political competition from wealthy oligarchs, like Khodorkovsky.

State firm Rosneft, chaired by Putin's former chief of staff Igor Sechin, acquired the bulk of Yukos' assets in a forced bankruptcy auction to recoup back-taxes. (dpa)