Chicago Tribune - 12.24.2003

 

 

 

 

Chicago Tribune

Ex-Russian oil exec to stay in jail for 3 more months

Detention extended beyond elections 

From Tribune news services

MOSCOW -- A court Tuesday extended the detention period for Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to March 25, well beyond the scheduled date of Russia's presidential elections. Lawyers for Khodorkovsky, the former chief of the oil company Yukos, said they would appeal the decision.

Khodorkovsky's custody had been scheduled to end on Dec. 30. No date has been set for his trial on charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion. The elections are scheduled for March 14.

"We believe it violates Khodorkovsky's rights," said Karina Moskalenko, one of his lawyers, about the two-day closed-door hearing. She said her client did not expect "lenience, mercy or kindness," but he had expected that the court would "observe the law."

The October arrest of Khodorkovsky, 40, whose personal worth is estimated at $8 billion, was widely regarded as a Kremlin punishment for openly financing political parties opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. As the head of Yukos, Russia's largest oil producer, Khodorkovsky had also advocated increasing exports to the West and building pipelines independent of the Russian government, a position that Putin reportedly viewed as a parallel foreign oil policy. Khodorkovsky resigned from Yukos after his arrest.

Vasily Aleksanian, another lawyer for Khodorkovsky, said that prosecutors had failed to give specific reasons for extending Khodorkovsky's detention other than "Khodorkovsky had two foreign passports, was well-off, had two official addresses and good connections."

Meanwhile, Putin on Tuesday declared the Kremlin will consider seizing assets acquired illegally by some of the country's richest men and imposing taxes to regain some of the nation's privatized mineral wealth.

Providing an important window into how he would govern if elected to a second term, the Russian president said only business executives who followed the law when acquiring their assets "can feel calm, and sleep soundly." He said it was time for business to help reverse the fortunes of the 31 million Russians who live in poverty.

"The business community cannot and must not stand on the sidelines, evading the solution to social problems," Putin said in an address to the board of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "The state has a right to count on the business community's social activity."