Khodorkovsky Calls Charges a Farce (Yukos Oil)

[Joanne98]

Thursday, February 8, 2007
Khodorkovsky Calls Charges a Farce
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer

Jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky dismissed the money-laundering charges brought against him this week as a "shameful farce" aimed at keeping him in prison until after the 2008 presidential election and predicted that judges would find him guilty after a short trial.

"Those who devised the Khodorkovsky affair to steal Russia's most successful oil company ... are afraid to see me free and want to insure themselves against my release on parole," Khodorkovsky said in a statement posted on his web site late Tuesday.

"The court, a subservient instrument of the power vertical, will of course deliver a guilty verdict," Khodorkovsky said in his statement. The case was a "shameful farce, which has nothing to do with justice," he said.

Prosecutors brought charges against Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev on Monday in the east Siberian city of Chita, where the two are being held. They are currently serving eight-year sentences on fraud and tax evasion charges. The men now stand accused of embezzling and laundering $23 billion to $25 billion in oil revenues through offshore trading companies and Khodorkovsky's Open Russia foundation, defense lawyers say.

If convicted, they face up to a further 15 years each in prison. The charges mean that they will likely have to stay behind bars pending the trial and throughout the hearings. If it were not for the charges, the men could be considered for parole later this year.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/02/08/041.html