US criticises second conviction for Russian tycoon

FORMER RUSSIAN oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been found guilty of money laundering and embezzlement in a case widely seen in the West as prime minister Vladimir Putin’s revenge on a dangerous enemy.

The verdict was condemned by the United States and Germany, while the European Union said it would be watching “very closely” when Khodorkovsky was sentenced, with most experts predicting that his current jail term would be extended to 2017.

As hundreds of the fallen tycoon’s supporters rallied outside the Moscow court, and some were taken away by police, judge Viktor Danilkin ruled that Khodorkovsky and former business partner Platon Lebedev had stolen billions of dollars worth of oil from their own Yukos company and laundered the proceeds.

“The guilt of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev is confirmed by the evidence presented in the course of the trial,” Mr Danilkin said, as the defendants talked quietly among themselves, flicked through documents and exchanged glances with relatives in the courtroom.

Once Russia’s richest man, Khodorkovsky (47), and Lebedev (54) were first convicted in 2005 for fraud and tax evasion, after which Yukos was broken up and its prize assets were snapped up on the cheap by state energy companies run by people loyal to Mr Putin.

In a cable sent to Washington last December, the US embassy in Moscow said the facade of a fair trial for Khodorkovsky amounted to Russia putting “rule of law lipstick on a political pig”.

Russian courts were part of “a cynical system where political enemies were eliminated with impunity” and the Yukos case was “clearly political”, the cable said.

Khodorkovsky was one of several “oligarchs” to acquire huge wealth through murky privatisation deals in the 1990s, but only those who challenged Mr Putin’s political pre-eminence have come under serious legal scrutiny.

Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003 after criticising Mr Putin, funding opposition parties and hinting that he might have personal political ambitions.

The verdict in the latest trial was abruptly postponed on December 15th, and the next day Mr Putin delivered a withering denunciation of Khodorkovsky on national television, concluding that he believed that “thieves should sit in jail”.

“What we are hearing leaves us in no doubt that pressure was put on the court – that the court was not free when adopting this decision,” defence lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant said as Mr Danilkin read his ruling.

“It is shameful for the country. We will appeal the verdict,” he added.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the ruling “raises serious questions about selective prosecution – and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations. This and similar cases have a negative impact on Russia’s reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations and improving its investment climate.”

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said the trial’s conduct “was extremely dubious and a step backward on the road toward a modernisation”.