Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev were charged yesterday with the additional offence of embezzlement of $25 billion.
I’ll say that again - embezzlement of $25 billion.
Now, how on earth does a man who, at the hight of his riches was worth a mere $15 billion, manage to steal that kind of money? To me, the Russian government’s decision to use this figure as the basis of their prosecution, shouts out ‘politically motivated charge’
Robert Amsterdam, Khodorkovsky’s US lawyer, has more about the day’s events on his blog (obviously, bear in mind when reading that he has a clear bias in favour of his client…):
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev themselves are being guarded by a phalanx of OMON troops wearing crash helmets and balaclava ski masks and armed with machine guns. These troops have been brought in from elsewhere in Russia, and do not answer to the local authorities. Schmidt, who has worked as a lawyer since Soviet times and thought he had seen it all, says that he has never encountered the kind of draconian security procedures that are in place at the Chita SIZO isolator prison where his client is being held. To visit Khodorkovsky, he has to undergo a full search of all his belongings and pass through thirty locked doors and gates.
Schmidt reports that it has been announced that the actual trial will take place inside the Chita isolator prison. Even if we ignore the fact that by law it should be taking place in Moscow, the very idea of holding it inside the walls of this high-security facility means that even if the trial is formally declared to be “open”, in fact nobody - except those the power chooses - will be allowed to attend because they will not be able to obtain security clearance from the prison authorities.
One final thought - I’ve noticed that a few news outlets are trying to link these charges to the 2008 Presidential elections:
Khodorkovsky would be eligible for parole in October, after serving half his term. With parliamentary elections slated for December and a March 2008 presidential vote - which Putin is barred by term limits from contesting - analysts said the president and those around him want to ensure Khodorkovsky remains behind bars.
For the Kremlin, “The main thing is that he doesn’t get out before 2008,” said Yuri Korgunyuk of the Indem think tank in Moscow. “They very much wouldn’t want that to happen.”
Don’t believe a word of it.
Khodorkovksy might be eligible for parole in October, but the chances of his actually being granted that parole were precisely zero - even befor these new charges were laid. Any talk of 2008 is just his supporters trying to whip up some media interest.
In reality, these charges are designed to keep Khodorkovksy behind bars for the duration of the next Presidency, leaving the next President of Russia - whoever he or she may be - with one less problem to worry about during their first term.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:16 am
If MK’s chances of being granted parole were “precisely zero” that in and of itself is a pretty stark indictment of the Russian justice system. It’s the same as saying Russia doens’t have one, if a billionaire has no chance of getting justice. Lawyer on top of that an action that “shouts out ‘politically motivated charge’” (lawyer Schmidt aptly called it “not simply absurd - they are insane. … Whoever wrote them was either mad or drunk”) and you have a fully emerged neo-Soviet Russia, a country with no justice system, just the arbitrary (perhaps insane) decisions of a dictator. Terrifying!
I do think, though, that the Kremlin’s action has changed the issue from whether MK can get parole before the 2008 elections to whether he’ll ever get out of prison, and in so doing it has diverted attention from his roll in 2008 and made it less likely that the question of denying his parole could be an issue there. For the vast unwashed population, the Kremlin can now talk about “how many” crimes MK is guilty of (in fact, he’s now being prosecuted - persecuted - for the same crime twice) and thereby remove him entirely from the table.