http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/06/wrussia06.xml
Jailed oil oligarch faces 'absurd' new charges
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 2:09am GMT 06/02/2007
Russia brought new criminal charges against the jailed oligarch Mikhail
Khodorkovsky yesterday in an apparent attempt to ensure that one of Vladimir
Putin's chief rivals remains in prison beyond next year's presidential
elections.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, could face 15 more years of
incarceration in a remote Siberian prison camp after he and a business
associate, Platon Lebedev, were accused of embezzling and laundering £20
billion in illegal oil revenues.
Lawyers for the two men immediately denounced the charges as a
politically motivated campaign to neuter one of the Kremlin's most outspoken
critics before elections that are expected to bring to power a successor picked
by Mr Putin.
Khodorkovsky would have been eligible for parole in October having served
half of an eight-year sentence, including pre-trial detention. The former head
of the Yukos oil company was found guilty of tax evasion and fraud during
perhaps the most politically charged trial of the post-Soviet era in 2005.
Khodorkovsky, who has continued to criticise the government from behind
bars, called the new charges "insane and absurd". It is unclear whether he was
intending to compete in the elections, though analysts say he would almost
certainly have used his wealth to fund a liberal opposition candidate.
Maria Lipman, of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, a respected think-tank,
said: "Like the first case, this new one also seems politically motivated. And
like the first case, it also raises significant doubts with regard to the
quality of the Russian justice system."
