29 May 2004 06:27
Russia`s wealthiest man appears on fraud charge
ByLine: Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow
BILLIONAIRE Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man and an outspoken critic of the regime, appeared in court
yesterday charged with massive tax evasion and fraud, as a legal onslaught against his business empire threatened to
bankrupt the country's biggest oil company.
The pre-trial session was the first substantive hearing in a case that is widely perceived as a warning shot to
Russia's "oligarchs", to urge them to stay out of politics and bend to the will of former KGB agent
President Vladimir Putin.
The hearing was adjourned until June 8, without a date being set for delivery of the first evidence in a trial that
could land Mr Khodorkovsky in jail for 10 years and see Yukos, the oil firm he created, crumble beneath demands for
$3.5billion in fines and unpaid taxes.
Shares in the firm plunged 11pc to $7.50 yesterday, their lowest since March 2002, after reports that embattled chief
executive Simon Kukes could be replaced in June by Steven Theede, another Yukos executive.
Outside the closed courtroom, Maria Khodorkovsky, the magnate's mother, said her son had no regrets over a
career that took him from the deeply corrupt cut-and-thrust of 1990s Russia to arrest at gunpoint last October on his
private jet, and brought him an estimated $15billion fortune.
She also insisted that he was realistic about the prospect of a decade behind bars: "I think he's prepared.
He's gone through so much already."
[The Daily Telegraph] |
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