One Year On: Khodorkovsky’s Supporters Picket Moscow Court

On 25 Oct., 12 months after former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion, a group of his supporters gathered near the building of the Meshchansky Court in Moscow, where his case is being examined.

Activists of the public movement Sovest voiced their support for the jailed oil tycoon by staging a picket near the court building.

The protesters held placards demanding the immediate release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as well as the head of Menatep Group Platon Lebedev and a former security officer of Yukos Aleksei Pichugin. “Freedom in the new Russia will begin with freedom for Khodorkovsky and Levedev,” one of the placards read.

Meanwhile, the Meshchansky Court on Monday continued questioning witnesses for the prosecution. Genrikh Padva, Khodorkovsky’s defense lawyer, believes that the court will begin hearing witnesses for the defense in November, and in January next year sentences may be passed in the case of Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and Krainov.

The prosecutors have charged Khodorkovsky and Lebedev under seven articles of the Criminal Code, including large-scale fraud, tax evasion and forgery.

The wealthiest man in Russia and the 16th wealthiest man in the world according to Forbes Magazine, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was considered to be one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs until his arrest at gunpoint on Oct. 25, 2003.

In 2001 Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a group of other Yukos shareholders established the Open Russia Foundation, which sponsored and implemented a wide range of social and educational programs largely aimed at promoting democratic reforms in Russia. In his public statements, Khodorkovsky proved to be an open critic of President Putin’s policy of ’manageable democracy’ and the growing influence of the siloviki — military and security officers and agencies whose authority in all spheres of Russian life has grown considerably since Vladimir Putin assumed office in 2000.

During the 2003 elections to the State Duma Khodorkovsky funded the liberal SPS (Union of Right Forces) and Yabloko parties.

In early July 2003, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office sanctioned the arrest of Platon Lebedev, Khodorkovsky’s partner and second largest shareholder in Yukos on suspicion of illegally acquiring a stake in a state-owned fertiliser firm in 1994. Lebedev’s arrest was followed by the Tax Ministry’s investigations into tax returns filed by Yukos, and a delay to the antitrust commission’s approval for its merger with Sibneft.

On Oct. 25, 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested by masked FSB operatives, who stormed his private jet as it was waiting to be refuelled near the city of Novosibirsk en route to a remote Yukos production centre in East Siberia. Upon his return to Moscow, Khodorkovsky was charged with tax fraud and evasion, and placed in detention pending trial. Several bail requests were denied.

His arrest has attracted attention from various public figures and human right groups, both Russian and Western, who criticized it as being politically motivated.

Following his arrest, Mikhail Khodorkovsky resigned as the CEO of Yukos and was replaced by Russian-born U.S. citizen Simon Kukes.

(From Moscow News, 25.10.2004)