Verdict Postponed - BBC

The verdict in the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former chief of Russian oil firm Yukos, has been postponed until 16 May.
The judge had been expected to give her verdict on Wednesday, but a notice put up in the Moscow court announced that her judgement was being delayed.

"There will not be a court hearing today [Wednesday]," said a court security official.

Mr Khodorkovsky is accused of multiple charges of fraud and tax evasion.

He could face up to 10 years in jail if found guilty.

There was no immediate explanation for the postponement.

'Punishment'

Mr Khodorkovsky, 41, has always protested his innocence, and most analysts say the trial is politically motivated.

Platon Lebedev is also being tried

They claim he is being punished by the Kremlin for his political ambition. Before he was arrested in October 2003, Mr Khodorkovsky had begun to fund opposition political parties.

The charges against Mr Khodorkovsky included theft of someone else's property by fraud, causing property damage by fraud, tax evasion and insurance theft involving large amounts, embezzlement and forgery of official documents.

Since his time behind bars, Russian authorities have all but brought Yukos to its knees.

In December of last year they forcibly sold off Yukos' former main oil producing unit Yuganskneftegas (Yugansk), after Yukos could not pay a giant $27.5bn (£15bn) back-tax bill.

Russian state oil firm Rosneft was the eventual purchaser of Yugansk, which it bought for $9.4bn.

Mixed views

The charges against Mr Khodorkovsky relate to the privatisation of Apatit, a fertiliser firm, in the 1990s.

He is standing trial alongside former colleague Platon Lebedev, who also protests his innocence. The case has taken 10 months.

Analysts are divided on whether Mr Khodorkovsky will be found guilty.

Some said that Monday's state-of-the-nation address by Russian President Vladimir Putin contained some softening comments and hinted that jail was not the only route for Mr Khodorkovsky.

They say that Moscow may release him, so as to appease Western firms and governments concerned at what they see as greater interference by Moscow in Russian business.

Yet other analysts are convinced that Mr Khodorkovsky will stay behind bars at least until after the presidential elections in 2008.

(From BBC, 4.27.2004)

Ex Yukos head Khodorkovsky trial verdict delayed to May 16

MOSCOW (AFP) - The eagerly anticipated verdict in the trial of Yukos oil giant founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky was unexpectedly postponed without explanation but experts dismissed speculation of a reprieve for the man once seen as a paragon of fair business play in Russia.

"It is cynical, it is heartbreaking for the families and it is a clear statement from the Russian authorities not only that they are above the law but they are transparently willing to flout due process," Robert Amsterdam, an international legal adviser to Khodorkvosky, told AFP on Wednesday.

The verdict in a trial watched intently worldwide by rights advocates and foreign investors alike was scheduled to be read by judges in a Moscow courtroom and its postponement until May 16 was announced in a terse statement taped to the glass door at the main entrance of the building.

With several dozen protesters shouting "Shame on the courts!" outside, defense lawyers entered the courthouse and reemerged soon afterwards, reporting that they had merely been asked to sign a document acknowledging the rescheduling of the verdict hearing.

"No one yet knows the reason" for the postponement, said a Khodorkovsky defense attorney, Igor Mikheyev.

The verdict delay came two days after President Vladimir Putin used his annual state of the nation address to describe further development of democracy and the rule of law -- including insistence on a genuinely independent judiciary -- as Russia's main priority for the years ahead.

Putin warned Khodorkovsky and other "oligarchs" soon after he was elected to his first term in 2000 to stay out of politics, and the trial of the Yukos founder has been viewed widely as politically driven Kremlin retribution for Khodorkovsky's funding of groups opposed to Putin.

Putin's speech on Monday was characterized by local political experts as a landmark departure from his usual theme of stability and a "strong state," prompting one top Kremlin advisor to speculate Tuesday that it could bear directly and favorably on the Khodorkovsky verdict.

"Judging from the text of the address, ensuring the independence of the courts from the executive branch could produce a correct and fair verdict to free two citizens under investigation from tax terrorism," Andrei Illarionov, a senior advisor to Putin, told Interfax news agency.

Amsterdam said he welcomed Illarionov's comments but did not interpret them as a serious indication that a sentence for Khodorkovsky widely expected to be harsh might be diminished.

Instead, he said, it was a reflection of Russian authorities' efforts to prevent a large cloud from darkening celebrations in Moscow on May 9 commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and due to be attended by US President George W. Bush and dozens of other leaders.

"Pushing it past May 9 is just a further demonstration of the actual operation of a political show trial," Amsterdam said. "They will come up with a reason, some kind of dressed-up reason" for the delay. "But there is in my view no other reason."

Interfax news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the verdict was put off because judges had not had enough time in the two weeks since the trial wrapped up to finish writing it. Opposition politicians however scoffed at that explanation.

"This is perhaps some kind of intrigue," Irina Khakamada, leader of the Our Choice party, told Echo Moskvi radio. "It demonstrates yet again that in our country court rulings derive not from the law but from the will of top politicians."

Khodorkovsky, 41, and Platon Lebedev, his 46-year old co-defendant and former top deputy in Yukos, have been charged with massive fraud and tax evasion and each face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Lebedev was arrested on July 2, 2003, followed by Khodorkovsky on October 25 that year. Both have been held in prison since then and have appeared throughout their trial inside a cage with metal bars that was placed in the courtroom.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Khodorkovsky's father, Boris Khodorkovsky, said the judges had decided to delay the verdict "due to the massive interest" it had generated among international politicians, investors and journalists.

The trial itself wrapped up on April 11 with Khodorkovsky defiantly rejecting the charges against him -- as he had throughout the 10 months of court procedings -- as a "farce" and vowing to appeal.

As the trial of Khodorkovsky has unfolded in the past year, the Yukos oil empire that he built has also been effectively dismantled by the Russian state. Last December, Yukos' crown production jewel, subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz, was auctioned and in essence re-nationalised by the state.

(From AFP via Yahoo!, 4.27.2005)

Khodorkovsky Supporters Demonstrate at Moscow Court House

Although the sentencing of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev was postponed until May 16, hundreds gathered before the court house in central Moscow on April 27 to pledge their support for the jailed oil tycoon who could face up to 10 years in prison for fraud.

A crowd of 250-300 people gathered for a sanctioned rally before the Meschansky Court, with t-shirts, posters and banners supporting a man who has literally become a poster boy for human rights and democratic values in Russia. Representatives from the liberal Yabloko and SPS parties were actively involved in the rally.

The human rights group Sovest and the political organization Oborona were also present.

But side by side with Khodorkovsky’s supporters, there was a smaller group of people who wanted to see Khodorkovsky in jail and protested against what they feared would be a leniency in his sentence.

(From Mosnews, 4.27.2005)

FINAL STATEMENT OF MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY

Your Honor, honorable court, honorable attendees!

I am a Russian patriot, and therefore first and foremost look upon what is taking place around YUKOS, my partners, and me personally from the point of view of the interests and values of my country.
Let us recall how this all started. Nearly 2 years ago, they arrested my friend Lebedev in the hospital. I remained in Russia after Platon’s arrest, although friends and lawyers categorically recommended that I not do this. I behaved as I did because I love Russia and I believe in its future as a strong and law-governed state.
Although I made a conscious choice – to remain in the country and not to hide from anybody, a year and a half ago armed people in masks arrested me. Since that time, they are holding me under guard, refusing to release me on bail, against the pledges of dozens of the most respected citizens of our country: leading authors, scholars, actors, public figures.
A year ago began the orderly and systematic destruction of YUKOS. The entire country knows how, by whom, and why the scandalous “YUKOS case” was organized. It was contrived by certain influential people with the aim of taking for themselves the most prosperous oil company of Russian, or more precisely, the revenues from its financial flows.
When they say that the “YUKOS case” has led to a strengthening of the role of the state in the economy, this evokes bitter laughter from me.
...
Following and full text version

Yukos Trial Ends With Applause

In an impassioned and at times emotional appeal, Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Monday closed his defense with a 39-minute address to the court that left his relatives, lawyers and even reporters applauding and some supporters wiping away tears.

The verdict for Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev is to be delivered at noon on April 27, Judge Irina Kolesnikova said after Khodorkovsky's speech was over. Both men face up to 10 years in prison, the maximum sentence demanded by prosecutors on charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion.

Addressing the court from the defendants' cage he has shared for the past 10 months with Lebedev, Khodorkovsky once again denied any wrongdoing Monday and said that the case against him was a piece of "pulp fiction" written by prosecutors and masterminded by state officials who wanted to gain control of Yukos, the company he led until his arrest in October 2003.

"The entire country knows why I was jailed -- so that I did not stand in the way of the company being ripped apart," Khodorkovsky told the judges, prosecutors and the audience at Moscow's Meshchansky district court.

"The people who organized my personal prosecution have been trying to scare the authorities over my mythical political ambitions. They openly deceived the president, top members of the country's leadership and society as a whole," he said.


Khodorkovsky's political ambitions have long been seen as a key trigger behind the Kremlin's clumsy attempt to tame him. The bitter and sometimes unseemly squabble over Yukos' former production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, has further dented investor confidence in the country.

Khodorkovsky said that apart from him losing his core business and personal freedom, cases against him, his colleagues and Yukos did nothing but damage Russia's interests.

Since the state's overwhelming legal onslaught against him and Yukos peaked over a year ago, capital flight had increased sixfold, while investors' trust had been ruined and the country's reputation diminished, he said.

"The full responsibility for this should be placed on those who masterminded my arrest and are now trying to send me to the camps for a long time," Khodorkovsky said.

Khodorkovsky said that his actions as a businessman had never been motivated exclusively by the quest for material wealth.

"As opposed to those shy businessmen and businessmen-bureaucrats that stand behind the case against Yukos, I do not own yachts, palaces, racing cars or football clubs. ... I do not have any property abroad. You can ask the special services, they know this well," Khodorkovsky said.

"I was not a proper kind of oligarch. Possibly because of that, the authorities not only took Yukos away from me but have also kept me in jail for the second year in a row."

In an emotional appeal to his family, Khodorkovsky thanked his parents and his wife for their support.

"Thank you, my dears, and forgive me for upsetting you and making you worry," he told his father and mother, who were in court Monday.

When speaking of his wife, Irina, Khodorkovsky compared her to the wives of the Decembrists, who after the failed revolt against the monarchy in 1825 followed their husbands into Siberian exile.

"I want to tell all the members of my family, 'I love you!'" Khodorkovsky said.

Khodorkovsky's father, Boris, defended his son after the hearing was over.

"If I had known that he was really guilty, I would have told him that it was time to pay the price. But what is all this for?" he told reporters outside the court building.

Khodorkovsky's mother, Marina, said that even in prison her son was likely to remain an active citizen.

"I think he will organize something in the prison so that the prison will flourish. I think he will do something like that," she said, Reuters reported.

Khodorkovsky said that since he did not acknowledge any guilt, he would not ask for leniency from the judges. He also said that regardless of the verdict he intended to remain an active member of society and work for the benefit of Russia.

"I want to and will work -- in a new capacity, not as an owner of an oil company -- for the benefit of my country and my people, regardless of the court's ruling," he said.

Kolesnikova and her two fellow judges appeared to listen to Khodorkovsky with interest and took notes.

Prosecutor Dmitry Shokhin, however, looked unmoved and spent much of the time Khodorkovsky was speaking gazing at the courtroom's walls and ceiling. He left rapidly through a back door once the hearing was over, avoiding eye contact with reporters in the courtroom.

In comments carried later by Interfax, Shokhin said he was convinced that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev would be found guilty.

"In our view, enough evidence was presented during the trial for the court to deliver a just guilty verdict," Shokhin said after the hearing.

"I am absolutely convinced that Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev committed serious crimes, and there is undisputable proof," he said. "All the nice words and loud declarations about innocence and caring for Russia made today are only words."

Lebedev, who was also offered the chance to make a final speech, turned down the opportunity, arguing that he had not received a fair trial. On Friday, Lebedev told the judges that he would not make an address to the court since Shokhin was "an immoral careerist" who was known for his "professional unscrupulousness."

Defense lawyers for both Lebedev and Khodorkovsky refused to speculate Monday on what the verdict would be.

The defense teams also offered no theory as to why the verdict would be delivered in just two weeks. Lawyers for the two men said recently they had expected Kolesnikova to deliver her verdict by the second half of May at the earliest.

Robert Amsterdam, a member of Khodorkovsky's defense team who represents him abroad, appeared pessimistic about the outcome.

"It would be obscene to talk about sentences, but from the first I have said that he will be found guilty. Nothing I have seen and ... heard has led me to a different opinion," Amsterdam said.

A guilty verdict, however, could result in a string of unpleasant disclosures for Russia's governing elite, Khodorkovsky's business ally Leonid Nevzlin threatened on Monday.

"If my partner Khodorkovsky is found guilty, I will tell everything: about corruption in the Kremlin, about connections to business, about what kind of money Kremlin officials get and on what kind of yachts they spend their vacations," said Nevzlin, who is wanted by Russian prosecutors and lives in Israel, in an interview published by Germany's Focus magazine Monday.

When asked why he did not want to spill the beans immediately, Nevzlin said, "because I do not want to be blamed for Khodorkovsky's sentence, which would be [President Vladimir] Putin's revenge for my disclosures."

(From The Moscow Times, 4.11.2005)

The Collapsing Space of Dissent

Monday may be the last day of hearings in the interminable Yukos trial. As it has neared the end, throngs of journalists and the variously curious have resumed going to the court hearings, which were barely attended for most of the last nine months of the trial.

Like many people, I went last week to hear Genrikh Padva, a famous attorney who is defending Mikhail Khodorkovsky, give his closing arguments, which went on for the better part of three days. Like a lot of people, I couldn't get in at first. The best-publicized trial of the decade is consigned to a courtroom big enough to accommodate perhaps a dozen visitors -- about three times this number actually squeeze in. More than half a dozen sentries in and out of uniform guard the entrance to the courtroom and watch over the elaborate entrance and exit procedures.

Journalists and others form a line that acts just like any other line in this country. They try to elbow each other out of the way, devise ways of fooling the system -- one reporter left her coat in the courtroom to ensure she would get back in after the break, but it just meant she was stuck outside, waiting for the hearing to end -- and get into spats with one another.

"Let me through, I'm RIA-Novosti," a reporter from the state news agency says to me.
"But I'm a journalist, too," I say.
"But I'm not just any journalist. I'm RIA-Novosti."
"That's exactly why I'm not letting you through!" I snap.

During breaks, journalists angling for position form an extremely narrow corridor, forcing members of the defense team literally to squeeze through on their way back in. The only thing that makes this feel at all different from the killer lines of the Soviet era is that the attorneys, at least, are understanding and even gracious, despite having to push their way through the throngs of anxious journalists.

At first think, it seems illogical that the Russian authorities would place the best-publicized trial of the decade, one that is designed to be and runs as a show trial, in a tiny courtroom that can't accommodate all the journalists who would write about it. But then you realize that forcing people into confined spaces, and placing the walls too close for comfort, is the best way this country knows of controlling people through humiliation. Inside the courtroom, the journalists and visitors sit scrunched up, struggling to take notes without elbowing their neighbors. Khodorkovsky himself, together with his co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, sits inside a cage so small that when he stretches his legs, he has to stick his feet out through the bars. The fact that Khodorkovsky does so, as though refusing to respect the confines of the cage, is a daily affront to those who put him there. (Lebedev tends to sit upright, his legs crossed well inside the cage.)

That journalists, family members and supporters are forced to jockey for position in the crowded space outside the courtroom is also a familiar and effective gesture. It tells the journalists who is boss. It even makes them suspect that their ability to enter the courtroom may be related to what they publish. As I waited to get into the hearing, I actually watched the marshals and several secret service agents read out loud excerpts from a piece on the Khodorkovsky trial printed in my magazine. They were not pleased, and I found myself hoping they didn't realize I represented this publication. Instinctively, I even looked away when they were discussing the story.

My memory of the Soviet Union -- and I think this is true of many people -- is a series of small stuffy spaces, both physical and intellectual. Never enough room to talk, work or simply be alone. There is a wonderful expression in Russian: "the sense of space collapsing in" (oshchushcheniye skhlopyvayushegosya prostranstva). I remember hearing it about seven years ago, for the first time in years, in Minsk. Lately I've noticed it is resurfacing in Moscow.

Masha Gessen is deputy editor of Bolshoi Gorod.

(From The Moscow Times, 4.11.2005)

Judge in Yukos trial retires to consider verdict

By Neil Buckley in Moscow
Published: April 11 2005 18:43 | Last updated: April 11 2005 18:43

The leading judge in the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky retired to consider her verdict on Monday, after the jailed Russian oligarch protested his innocence for a final time.

Mr Khodorkovsky, formerly Russia's richest man, faces up to 10 years in a prison labour camp if found guilty of fraud and tax evasion charges. In his closing statement greeted by applause from spectators in the north Moscow courtroom he said he had been jailed by the Kremlin for “self-serving reasons”.

“They jailed me so that I can't stop them looting Yukos,” the oil company that he turned into one of Russia's most successful businesses, Mr Khodorkovsky said.

As well as the charges against its former chief executive, Yukos has been hit with a $28bn back tax claim and had its main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, effectively renationalised in December.

Judge Irina Kolesnikova, who has been hearing the case against Mr Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, for 10 months, said she would announce the verdict reached by herself and two other judges on April 27.

That is some weeks earlier than lawyers had been expecting, and could provide an embarrassment for the Russian administration two weeks before world leaders fly to Moscow for celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day.

The Yukos case has led to slowing investment in Russia and a four-fold increase in capital flight last year.

Opinion polls show Mr Khodorkovsky has gone from being associated with the “oligarchs”, widely disliked by Russians for using the country's murky 1990s privatisations to build huge business empires, to being an object of some public sympathy. He has been in prison since his arrest more than 18 months ago and sat through his trial in a cage in the courtroom.

The Russian government says the case is a matter for the judicial and tax authorities. Officials say action had to be taken against Mr Khodorkovsky after he began using his enormous wealth to attempt to block legislation, including increased taxation on oil companies, that he opposed.

Amnesty International, the human rights group, said on Monday it believed there was a “significant political context to the arrest and prosecution” of Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev and other Yukos staff.

Those include Alexei Pichugin, a former Yukos security official sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of murder in a closed trial, and Svetlana Bakhmina, a senior lawyer who has been on hunger strike over her treatment after being detained in December.

But in a surprising step, Menatep, the Yukos parent group, said Russia had appointed an international arbitrator to deal with a $28.3bn compensation claim brought by Menatep for alleged expropriation of its property.

(From The Financial Times, 4.11.2005)

Ex-Yukos boss defiant as trial ends, verdict set for April 27

"This is a fabricated affair," Khodorkovsky, 41, said in his closing statement. "The whole world knows that the Khodorkovsky affair, initiated by a criminal bureaucracy, has dealt a blow to Russia.

"The prosecution proved none of the charges against me. This is a farce. Even the prosecution witnesses testified in my favor," said Khodorkovsky as he stood for 40 minutes inside a metal cage in the courtroom to deliver his statement.

His friends and family, lawyers and a number of journalists present in the courtroom broke into applause after Khodorkovsky concluded his remarks.

The former head of Yukos, once Russia's wealthiest person and viewed here and abroad as a symbol of market-centered entrepreneurship, faces up to 10 years in prison and Judge Irina Kolesnikova said that a ruling on his case would be issued at 12:00 noon (0800 GMT) on April 27.

Khodorkovsky's co-defendent and former Yukos deputy, Platon Lebedev, was also present in the courtroom for the closing of the trial, but declined to make a closing statement.

The pair were indicted on seven counts of tax evasion and embezzlement.

Most of the alleged offenses related to acquisition of companies and commercial assets in the 1990s as they built the Yukos oil major after taking control of formerly state-owned enterprises in the chaotic privatization process that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union.

But some observers say the Kremlin initiated the case to punish the tycoon for financing opposition parties ahead of parliamentary elections in 2003 and for openly challenging President Vladimir Putin's policies, including the state's monopoly over oil pipelines.

Putin has on several occasions denied that the case against Khodorkovsky and his company was politically motivated, saying prosecutors were simply pursuing a tax cheat.

Observers and defense attorneys have predicted a guilty verdict in the trial, which began last June.

"The arguments of the lawyers have no importance for the outcome of the trial -- it is a political affair and the decision will be made at the highest levels," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center.

Khodorkovsky, whose personal fortune was once estimated at around 15 billion dollars, was arrested in October 2003 and has been held in preventive detention since then.

Throughout the trial, the prosecution has said that Khodorkovsky's company fraudulently acquired a 20-percent stake in a fertilizer plant, Apatit, in 1994, that Khodorkovsky has minimized his taxes using offshore companies and that he had organized a criminal gang.

The defense has argued that the Apatit case was above-board, that many of the laws that Khodorkovsky is accused of breaking have since been made legal and that none of the witnesses called could confirm the existence of the criminal gang.

The Yukos case has had wide repercussions in Russia and abroad.

One of Khodorkovsky's lawyers told the German daily Berliner Zeitung that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his government backed two German banks -- Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DKW) -- in assisting Moscow to dismantle Yukos.

"The German chancellor acted as a Kremlin accomplice in a case of theft committed by the Russian leadership," Robert Amsterdam said, according to comments printed in German.

A German government spokesman called the charges "absurd".

Putin, who was in Germany to promote Russian companies at the Hanover Fair, offered businessmen assurances, saying late Sunday that "all the speculation on possible preparations being made in Russia to review privatizations is without any basis."

However, the controversy appeared set to continue, with nerves shaken in the international business community in Moscow over the announcement by Russo-British oil firm TNK-BP on Monday that it now faces a demand for back taxes from 2001 amounting to 935 million dollars.

The Moscow stock market's RTS index fell more than three percent on the news.

(From AFP via Yahoo!, 4.11.2005)

Ex-Yukos boss defiant as trial ends, verdict set for April 27

"This is a fabricated affair," Khodorkovsky, 41, said in his closing statement. "The whole world knows that the Khodorkovsky affair, initiated by a criminal bureaucracy, has dealt a blow to Russia.

"The prosecution proved none of the charges against me. This is a farce. Even the prosecution witnesses testified in my favor," said Khodorkovsky as he stood for 40 minutes inside a metal cage in the courtroom to deliver his statement.

His friends and family, lawyers and a number of journalists present in the courtroom broke into applause after Khodorkovsky concluded his remarks.

The former head of Yukos, once Russia's wealthiest person and viewed here and abroad as a symbol of market-centered entrepreneurship, faces up to 10 years in prison and Judge Irina Kolesnikova said that a ruling on his case would be issued at 12:00 noon (0800 GMT) on April 27.

Khodorkovsky's co-defendent and former Yukos deputy, Platon Lebedev, was also present in the courtroom for the closing of the trial, but declined to make a closing statement.

The pair were indicted on seven counts of tax evasion and embezzlement.

Most of the alleged offenses related to acquisition of companies and commercial assets in the 1990s as they built the Yukos oil major after taking control of formerly state-owned enterprises in the chaotic privatization process that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union.

But some observers say the Kremlin initiated the case to punish the tycoon for financing opposition parties ahead of parliamentary elections in 2003 and for openly challenging President Vladimir Putin's policies, including the state's monopoly over oil pipelines.

Putin has on several occasions denied that the case against Khodorkovsky and his company was politically motivated, saying prosecutors were simply pursuing a tax cheat.

Observers and defense attorneys have predicted a guilty verdict in the trial, which began last June.

"The arguments of the lawyers have no importance for the outcome of the trial -- it is a political affair and the decision will be made at the highest levels," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center.

Khodorkovsky, whose personal fortune was once estimated at around 15 billion dollars, was arrested in October 2003 and has been held in preventive detention since then.

Throughout the trial, the prosecution has said that Khodorkovsky's company fraudulently acquired a 20-percent stake in a fertilizer plant, Apatit, in 1994, that Khodorkovsky has minimized his taxes using offshore companies and that he had organized a criminal gang.

The defense has argued that the Apatit case was above-board, that many of the laws that Khodorkovsky is accused of breaking have since been made legal and that none of the witnesses called could confirm the existence of the criminal gang.

The Yukos case has had wide repercussions in Russia and abroad.

One of Khodorkovsky's lawyers told the German daily Berliner Zeitung that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his government backed two German banks -- Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DKW) -- in assisting Moscow to dismantle Yukos.

"The German chancellor acted as a Kremlin accomplice in a case of theft committed by the Russian leadership," Robert Amsterdam said, according to comments printed in German.

A German government spokesman called the charges "absurd".

Putin, who was in Germany to promote Russian companies at the Hanover Fair, offered businessmen assurances, saying late Sunday that "all the speculation on possible preparations being made in Russia to review privatizations is without any basis."

However, the controversy appeared set to continue, with nerves shaken in the international business community in Moscow over the announcement by Russo-British oil firm TNK-BP on Monday that it now faces a demand for back taxes from 2001 amounting to 935 million dollars.

The Moscow stock market's RTS index fell more than three percent on the news.

(From AFP via Yahoo!, 4.11.2005)

Judge mulls Khodorkovsky verdict

The judge in the trial of former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky has retired to consider her verdict, saying she will give her decision on 27 April.

Mr Khodorkovsky is accused of multiple charges of fraud and tax evasion, and if found guilty could be jailed for up to 10 years.

He has always protested his innocence, and many commentators argue that his trial is politically motivated.

Analysts say he is being punished by the Kremlin for his political ambition.

Before his arrest and imprisonment in 2003, Mr Khodorkovsky had started to fund opposition political parties.

'Self-serving'

Russian authorities have all but brought former oil giant Yukos to its knees during Mr Khodorkovsky's time behind bars.

Moscow demanded $27.5bn (£15bn) in back-taxes and in December 2004 forced the sell off of its former major oil producing unit Yuganskneftegas (Yugansk) to help pay the bill.

"All this is being done for self-serving reasons," said Mr Khodorkovsky in his closing statement to the court.

"They [Russian authorities] have put me in jail so I can't stop them looting Yukos."

Co-accused

The charges against Mr Khodorkovsky relate to the privatisation of Apatit, a fertiliser firm, in the 1990s.

He is standing trial alongside former colleague Platon Lebedev, who also protests his innocence. The trial has taken 10 months.

Russian state oil firm Rosneft was the eventual purchaser of Yugansk, which it bought for $9.4bn.

"They [Russian authorities] have put me in jail so I can't stop them looting Yukos"
Mikhail Khodorkovsky

From BBC, 4.11.2004

Former Yukos CEO Maintains His Innocence

In a dramatic finale to Russia's biggest trial in decades, jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky ridiculed the fraud and tax charges against him as "fantasies of a pulp fiction writer" but stopped short of blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for his imprisonment and the dismantling of his oil empire.

A verdict is expected April 27 in the trial, which has gripped Russia and unsettled foreign investors. Khodorkovsky, who was arrested nearly 18 months ago and has watched the demise of his company Yukos from behind bars, faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of fraud, tax evasion and other charges - as is widely expected.

"A year ago the total, planned destruction of Yukos began," Khodorkovsky said in his final statement from a small cage in a Moscow courtroom jammed with journalists, relatives and observers. "It was organized by certain influential individuals with the intention of taking over the most flourishing oil company in Russia."

"There is no documentation or witness statements that would prove I have committed illegal actions," Khodorkovsky said in calm, clear voice. After his 40-minute address, visitors packed into the Meschansky district courtroom for the end of the 10-month trial broke into wild applause.

Yukos, which once pumped a fifth of Russia's crude, saw its biggest unit auctioned late last year to pay part of a disputed $28 billion back tax bill. The unit was eventually acquired by the state-owned oil company Rosneft.

Many observers trace the roots of the criminal case against Khodorkovsky and Yukos' parallel back tax bill to his funding of opposition parties before parliamentary elections in 2003, calling them Kremlin-sanctioned retribution for his growing clout - a charge Putin has repeatedly denied, saying the cases are legitimate probes into a corrupt business empire.

Khodorkovsky laid no blame on Putin himself in his closing speech, saying instead that the president was "openly misled" by bureaucrats as to his "fictitious" political ambitions. He stressed that he was not asking for leniency, but not everyone was convinced.

"Khodorkovsky doesn't want to spend his life in prison, and naturally he is going for a compromise ... but it's unlikely this will help him," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, a Kremlin-connected analyst with the Politika think tank. "It's too late."

Judge Irina Kolesnikova said the court would issue a verdict April 27 - two weeks before Putin, who has faced questions from the United States and other Western governments over the Yukos cases, plays host to dozens of world leaders for May 9 celebrations commemorating the Allied victory over the Nazis.

Prosecutors have called for the maximum sentence - 10 years - for both Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev. Khodorkovsky's legal team had little hope the court would disagree.

"I've said from the first day that he would be found guilty ... we can only pray for a miracle," the head of Khodorkovsky's U.S. legal team, Robert Amsterdam, said outside the courthouse.

The trial and dismantling of Yukos has shaken investor confidence in Russia, accelerating capital flight and stifling a growing stock market. Yukos estimates that U.S. minority shareholders lost about $6 billion as tax authorities piled on bills that for some years exceeded the company's revenues.

Still, many ordinary Russians welcomed the arrest of Khodorkovsky, one of the tycoons who they believe snapped up the jewels of Soviet industry in back-room deals while the masses struggled to get by.

In court Monday, Khodorkovsky, 41, dressed in a brown suede jacket and blue jeans, described himself as a humble billionaire who created a thriving, transparent company and gave generously to charity.

"I don't own a yacht or mansions ... not even a football club," Khodorkovsky said in clear reference to the Kremlin-loyal tycoon who is now Russia's wealthiest man: Roman Abramovich, owner of the Sibneft oil company and Britain's Chelsea soccer club.

Before his arrest Khodorkovsky was estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth $15 billion. In its latest list, the magazine put his wealth at $2.2 billion.

"He spoke the truth," Khodorkovsky's elderly father, Boris, said outside the courthouse. "He was brought up to love Russia."

(AP via Forbes, 4.11.2005)

Mikhail Khodorkovsky Is an Authority, But a Legal One

During yesterday’s debates in Meshchansky District Court of Moscow, Genrikh Padva, lawyer of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, denied the existence of an organized criminal group headed by his clients. He also asked the court to acquit Mr. Khodorkovsky of the charge on the appropriation of 44 percent stake of the Research Institute of Fertilizers and Insectofungicides which, according to the advocate, had been bought “absolutely legally.” After the hearings, Khodorkovsky’s lawyer Anton Drel said that friends of the defendants had already paid their $4,8 million back taxes.

Genrikh Padva devoted almost half of the evening to the prosecution’s statement about the defendants’ alleged crimes in an “organized group”.

“The prosecutors’ affirmation that Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev are nearly organized crime gangsters is absolutely groundless,” the lawyer stated. “The prosecution’s theory of MENATEP bank headed by Mr. Khodorkovsky was a part of the criminal group does not represent the facts either. This bank was one of the most successful in Russia in 90s. The participation of the bank’s employees in the investment auctions of the selling the stock of state enterprises is not a crime, but an ordinary activity provided for by the charter of MENATEP. Along with other points, it stipulates “the search for enterprises interested in the implementation of the existing workings.”

However, Mr. Padva called on the court not to be led astray by the prosecution which “identifies MENATEP bank with Mr. Khodorkovsky”. According to the lawyer, Mikhail Khodorkovsky stopped managing the bank “and went to oil fields” in 1995 after MENATEP had bought 78 percent stake of YUKOS, unprofitable at that time.

“Mostly thanks to the energy of Mr. Khodorkovsky, YUKOS turned into the leading oil enterprise in 2003 with the capitalization of $40 billion,” the lawyer underscored. “And then the investigators incriminate him in heading at that time some organized group without even specifying where and how it was being formed. The prosecution changes the names of the members of the group and even leaders from one hearing to another. In this connection, I would like to note that when Russian law enforcement agencies turned to the Supreme Court of Lichtenstein asking for legal redress on some dealership of MENATEP, the court refused referring to the absence of the link between this bank and criminal activities.

Genrikh Padva slammed the statement of the bill of indictment which says that Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev’s participation in the constituent assembly of Russian Trust and Trade (RTT) joint venture which later created and operated dummy firms “is evidence to their attempts to capture the lead in the organized group.”

“No one argues with the fact that they headed RTT,” the lawyer said. “But does it prove their leading criminal positions? What nonsense!”

For more than an hour did the advocate study the content of the appointment book subjoined to the file of the third defendant, Andrey Kraynov. The lawyer thinks that the investigators draw erroneous conclusions about Mr. Kraynov’s recording criminal group’s actions on the basis of surnames of MENATEP and RTT’s employees written there, their phone numbers, the names of the companies which the prosecutor’s office call dummy. Mr. Padva insists that “gangsters do not write down their criminal deeds in appointment books.”

Then Genrikh Padva proceeded to the indictment's episode of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev's embezzlement of 44 percent stake of the Research Institute of Fertilizers and Insectofungicides.

“How can we speak about embezzlement if a required consent of the state for the sale of over 10 percent state of this research institute at an investment auction was obtained? Wallton company (whose guarantor was MENATEP) paid for this share holding the price 20 time higher than its nominal. The involvement of Mr. Khodorkovsky in an alleged embezzlement is not proved by anything.”

During the lawyer’s speech on this matter Dmirty Shokhin, state prosecutor, twisted his finger by his temple mumbling something. Genrikh Padva pointed out to the public prosecutor that this gesture was “indecent”, and the court in the request of the advocate made an admonition to Mr. Shokhin for discourteous behaviour (earlier only lawyers got admonitions from court).

Mr. Padva’s speech is to be continued today. Meantime, his colleague Anton Drel told the press that the Group MENATEP shareholders, Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, who reside in Israel and are put by the Russian Prosecutor’s General on an international wanted list, have transferred $4,8 million to the Moscow department of the Finance Ministry’s Federal Treasury to repay back taxes of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Planton Lebedev as individuals. Thus, they have satisfied lawsuits against the defendants filed by tax inspectorates No.2 and No.5, used in this trial. Admitedly, an civil suit of17,8 billion rubles allegedly underpaid by YUKOS against the defendants filed by the Federal Tax Service has remained unsatisfied. The advocates are going to show their clients today the documents on this money transfer. However, the advocates will have to petition for the interruption of the debates and resumption of the inquest in order to subjoin the documents to the case files. Today before the morning hearing the lawyers will decide if it is worth petitioning. If the debates on the case are not suspended, they may finish today.

(From Kommersant, 4.7.2005)