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)