RUSSIA: Russia's richest man, Mr Mikhail Khodorkovsky (41), pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges including massive fraud and tax evasion yesterday, almost nine months after he was arrested at gunpoint on his private jet in Siberia, reports Daniel McLaughlin from Moscow
The oil baron, whose wealth is estimated at $15 billion, is widely seen as the target of a Kremlin-backed campaign to silence President Vladimir Putin's most powerful critic, and destroy a business empire based on the embattled energy firm, Yukos.
"I understand the accusations presented," Mr Khodorkovsky told a Moscow court. "I do not consider myself guilty on any count." His co-defendant and another billionaire shareholder in Yukos, Mr Platon Lebedev, also pleaded not guilty, in a case that has drawn sharp criticism from the United States and European Union over the apparent deployment of selective justice in the Russian courts.
State prosecutor, Mr Dmitry Shokhin, said both men had sought to illegally acquire huge stakes in leading firms through the deeply corrupt privatisations of the 1990s. "Lebedev in 1994 joined the organised criminal group led by Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the aim of acquiring shares, through deception, of major Russian companies in the privatisation period," Mr Shokhin told the court.
Mr Lebedev, when asked if he understood the charges against him, replied: "I don't understand what is going on in this court." His lawyers say he requires urgent medical treatment for a serious liver problem, but has been repeatedly denied bail.
Mr Khodorkovsky smiled and looked relaxed behind the bars of the metal cage reserved for defendants in Russian courtrooms. He has offered to relinquish his shares in Yukos to help pay off a $3.4 billion claim for unpaid taxes, after courts prevented Russia's biggest oil producer from selling assets to meet a bill that could total $8 billion.
Yukos was seen as one of Russia's most efficient and transparent companies before being crippled by a legal crackdown that has prompted fears among investors that Kremlin hardliners want greater control over the country's economy.