09 June 2004 10:35
Court date set for Khodorkovsky: Former Yukos chief will be tried with fellow oil billionaire, writes Daniel McLaughlin
in Moscow
ByLine: Daniel McLaughlin
RUSSIAN oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky will go on trial for fraud and tax evasion a week from today, alongside a key
ally in Yukos, the company he used to run before being ousted as a legal onslaught rocked the firm.
A Moscow court ruled yesterday that Russia's richest man should stand trial with billionaire Platon Lebedev.
Mr Lebedev's arrest last July marked the start of a legal crackdown that Mr Khodorkovsky's supporters have
said was a Kremlin-backed effort to silence his criticism of President Vladimir Putin and halt his funding of opposition
parties.
Yesterday's decision was a minor victory for the two men's lawyers, ensuring neither defendant testified
against the other in a case that will be seen as a test of the political independence of Russia's courts. It also
stops prosecutors using the Lebedev trial as a "dry run" to iron out procedural difficulties that could weaken
their case against Mr Khodorkovsky.
"It is logical to try the cases together," said Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Genrikh Padva. "If they
were separate, we wouldn't be able to know what the other party is doing, and we wouldn't be able to fully
defend our client."
Mr Khodorkovsky's father Boris and mother Marina were outside the closed courtroom. She said he would not seek a
compromise with prosecutors or the Kremlin.
"His will is strong, his eyes are full of fire and he is ready to fight," said Mrs Khodorkovsky. Wearing a
headscarf in Yukos's yellow and green corporate colours, she said the 40-year-old had done "everything by the
book".
"I know my son. He is a very law-abiding man, and he wouldn't violate the law."
Mr Khodorkovsky's arrest at gunpoint on his private jet last October rattled Russian stocks and sent Yukos
shares into a nosedive. The company warned last month that it could be driven into bankruptcy by a claim for about
pounds 1.8billion in unpaid taxes.
On the eve of his arrest, the tycoon, whose fortune is estimated at pounds 8billion, was close to clinching a deal to
sell a stake in Yukos to US oil major Exxon Mobil. A deal would have given him financial clout and political connections
in Washington that even the Kremlin could have struggled to control.
Russian media reported that the US deputy energy secretary, Kyle McSlarrow, was discussing the future of Yukos with
company officials in Moscow yesterday, with a view to a US major buying into the beleaguered firm.
Mr Khodorkovsky was one of the handful of "oligarchs" who made quick fortunes in the 1990s when the former
Soviet Union's prize industrial assets were sold for a fraction of their market value in rigged auctions.
[The Daily Telegraph] |
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