Claims of foul play as tycoon faces ten years' jail for fraud

Published on Tuesday 17 May 2005 01:36

THE Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is facing up to ten years in jail after being found guilty of fraud and other crimes yesterday.

As Russia’s most controversial trial finally reached a conclusion, judges at the Meschansky courthouse in northern Moscow said he had committed four of the seven offences with which he was charged.

A formal guilty verdict is expected today in a case that has been widely seen as a test of strength between Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, and Vladimir Putin, the country’s president.

Khodorkovsky, who used to be the head of Russia’s biggest oil company, Yukos, was arrested in late 2003 and has been on trial for 11 months, accused of financial crimes.

But his supporters say the charges are false and that the trial was ordered by the Kremlin after the tycoon started backing parties opposed to the rule of Mr Putin and was therefore seen as a threat to the state.

"It’s all part of a campaign to discredit, to taint and ruin a reputation," Robert Amsterdam, the head of Khodorkovsky’s legal team, said. "Let me say very clearly he’s absolutely innocent. This is a political case. The rule of law is under attack."

However, Mr Putin insisted in his state-of-the-nation speech last month that he did not support the state "persecution" of business.

Outside court yesterday, hundreds of pro-Khodorkovsky protesters chanted slogans, booed the judges and waved flags and banners in the bright sunshine. Sergei Mitrohin, the deputy leader of the opposition Yabloko party, was hauled away by police after refusing to move from the court entrance.

Among the charges facing Khodorkovsky and his co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, a business associate, is that "with the aim of malicious failure to obey a court order" he had redistributed shares in a fertiliser company. The judges also ruled that he had "knowingly submitted false declarations" about his financial status.

A final view on the veracity of the charges may take some time: as with many fraud cases, several events in the case are not disputed; what is disputed, however, is whether these events amounted to breaking the law.

Yuri Schmidt, a defence lawyer, said the judges were "completely following the conclusions of the prosecution".

He said Khodorkovsky’s lawyers would appeal and he suggested that they may look outside Russia to "other courts and other jurisdictions" - a hint that the case may eventually end up at the European Court of Human Rights.

Amnesty International has already criticised the "political" nature of the trial, criticising judges for interfering in the client-lawyer relationship.

The German Green MEP Milan Horacek said yesterday he would be urging the European Parliament to make formal criticism of Moscow. "Khodorkovsky and Lebedev appear in court in a cage ... like the ones who are already guilty," he said. "There is no independent legal system here."

Khodorkovsky, born to a poor family, made his fortune through a controversial deal ten years ago when the Russian government agreed to sell him Yukos, worth 4.9 billion, for just 190 million.

The deal infuriated many ordinary Russians, but was not illegal. After it, Khodorkovsky became his country’s most successful tycoon.