Kremlin declares oligarchs fair game

The most important court case in Russia since the fall of Communism will resume on Wednesday when Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the country's richest man, reoccupies the defendant's cage and hears prosecutors begin reading out an indictment that runs to 800 pages.

The case is the first of the Putin-era "show trials", according to Mr Khodorkovsky's advocates, designed to punish him for his anti-Kremlin politicking. Not so, says the government: rather, it is part of its efforts to clean up Russian business, reclaim some of the national assets plundered by the oligarchs, and force them to pay their tax dues.

The Kremlin has already hinted that the Khodorkovsky trial is something of a test case and that prosecution of other oligarchs may follow. If so, this is bad news for Russia's super-rich because, according to one Moscow-based analyst who declined to be named: "All of the oligarchs are creatures of the Yeltsin era. They have got where they are because they knew who to talk to and who to bribe. In the mid-1990s it was almost impossible not to be a criminal to be successful. If Khodorkovsky is guilty then so are all the others. He's just richer and stole bigger assets."


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