Trial of Ex-Yukos CEO May End in April

A lawyer for the jailed ex-CEO of the shattered Yukos oil empire said his client's trial on tax fraud and other charges could end in April.

The lawyer, Yuri Shmidt, told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily that he doubted a spring decision would see Yukos' former Chief Executive Officer Mikhail Khodorkovsky cleared of the charges against him, but noted defiantly that "in the end victory will be ours."

"The powers that be didn't start this case for it to end with his vindication," Shmidt said in an interview published Monday.

Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in October 2003 as the Kremlin launched a far-reaching legal campaign to neutralize him and his company. By funding opposition parties in the run-up to parliamentary elections in 2003 observers say Khodorkovsky had drawn the Kremlin's ire once too often.

Khodorkovsky's trial, which centers on the 1994 privatization of a fertilizer component maker, has dragged on for nine months. Meanwhile Yukos, the oil giant Khodorkovsky built out of questionable privatization auctions in the 1990s, saw its main production unit sold at a disputed auction in December against massive back tax claims of some $28 billion. The unit was later bought by state-owned oil company Rosneft.

Khodorkovsky delivered a three-hour testimony Friday in which he denied that he was guilty of any of the charges.

He and business partner Platon Lebedev - who also pleaded not guilty Monday - will now face about a week of questioning by the judge, and a further day or two will be devoted to hearing appeals and final submissions of evidence, Shmidt said. Debates and summarizing statements by the accused would take the hearing into mid-March.

"The question is how long the judge will require to write a decision," Shmidt said. "I think it will take no less than a month. In that case the decision will be made in April."

While Khodorkovsky and Lebedev could face a possible sentence of 10 years each, Shmidt said that in his opinion the authorities have "yet to decide" what the decision should be. Recent events could influence the outcome, he noted, in particular the summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and his Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia last week.

Shmidt declined to provide details of his client's health, but commented cryptically "there are things that make me fear for his health and even his life." He refused to elaborate.

(AP via Forbes, 02.28.2005)