Shmidt: Chita Jail Attack Part of Plot

By Valeria Korchagina
Staff Writer

Schmidt speaking at a news conference Thursday. He said the knife attack on Khodorkovksy was part of a plot.

The knife attack on Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his transfer Wednesday to a single jail cell were part of a plot to force him into solitary confinement, his lawyer Yury Shmidt said Thursday.

Federal Prison Service officials said Wednesday that Khodorkovsky was transferred to a single cell for his own safety after having his nose cut last week in an attack by a fellow prisoner. He would have "all comforts, including a desk and a television set," officials said.

Shmidt, however, disputed prison officials' claims, saying that Khodorkovsky had in fact been moved to a cell in the Chita region prison's punishment block.

Prison authorities filmed Khodorkovsky's cell transfer, Shmidt said, citing another Khodorkovsky lawyer, Natalya Terekhova. The reason for the filming was not clear, but Shmidt suggested that the footage could end up being broadcast on national television as part of a state-sponsored program designed to give the impression that Khodorkovsky was doing well.

Shmidt said that Khodorkovsky had been in fear of being transferred to a single cell, as even small freedoms such as being able to walk from one room to another were much-valued in prison.

"Khodorkovsky has not felt and does not feel threatened while staying with other prisoners," Shmidt said. The only people Khodorkovsky could expect an attack from were far away, Shmidt said.

"He is expecting nasty stuff from [President Vladimir] Putin and [deputy Kremlin chief of staff Igor] Sechin. The rest are pawns and nobodies," Shmidt said.

Khodorkovsky last year accused Sechin, who also serves as chairman of Rosneft, of being the architect of the state's legal onslaught against Yukos.

Shmidt also lashed out at Western governments, accusing them of indifference to the fate of his client and the Yukos oil company he once headed.

"The West's behavior is shameful," Shmidt told journalists at a news conference. "Our liberties, our rights, were sold for a barrel of oil and a cubic meter of gas.

"I keep trying to speak out and journalists listen. But politicians stay silent. It feels like a voice in the wilderness."