Former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky knows where he stands in Vladimir Putin’s Russia regarding new charges brought against him and business associate Platon Lebedev.
“It is absolutely clear what will happen next: Fake evidence, testimony from intimidated witnesses, and a quick guilty verdict,” Khodorkovsky said last week in a statement written from his prison cell in Chita, eastern Siberia.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were charged on Feb. 5 with laundering more than $20 billion. If Khodorkovsky is found guilty of the charges, 10 years or more could be added to his sentence.
Once Russia’s richest man, Khodorkovsky is serving 8 years on fraud and tax evasion charges, which he claims were fabricated by his enemies in the Kremlin to punish him for his political ambitions.
He rejected the new charges brought against him and has no doubts about the nature and purpose of the court.
No appeal
“The court, which has become a subservient part of the ‘vertical power system,’ will of course produce a guilty verdict,” Khodorkovsky said, adding that the new charges and the verdict are aimed simply at extending his current term in prison.
“Those who devised the ‘Khodorkovsky case’ in a bid to steal Russia’s most prospering oil company-Yukos-are afraid to see me free and want to make sure I am not released early,” Khodorkovsky said.
He said he is not losing much sleep over the prospect of a new prison term.
“A new verdict does not scare me,” he wrote. “What difference does it make how many years I get under trumped-up charges? Whatever the prospect, my persecutors-‘the party seeking a second prison term for Khodorkovsky’-are not trusted by any decent person in the world.”
Yes, one can certainly agree with him on that point. Who, after all, really does credit Putin with anything more than a naked power grab in his treatment of the former Yukos chief?
Future hopes
Considering that treatment, Khodorkovsky has come to accept his fate in the hope of something better when Putin eventually leaves office. “My future and that of Platon Lebedev will entirely depend on the future of our motherland and its image after the change of power in 2008,” Khodorkovsky said.
He had better hope that Putin can be trusted not to handpick a successor-as did former President Boris Yeltsin-who would simply pursue the same policy of intimidation and slander into the distant future.
Meanwhile, Khodorkovsky has plans of his own regarding the trial.
“My goal in the upcoming trial is to use my example to demonstrate that there is a ‘managed’ judicial system in Russia, that the law enforcement system and international cooperation between law enforcement agencies are being used not only to fight crime, but also for the advancement of bureaucrats’ selfish interests and personal political goals,” Khodorkovsky wrote.
