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Khodorkovsky verdict tests Kremlin will for reform

15 December 2010 02:46 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The verdict read out when jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky appears in court on Wednesday facing a possible six extra years in prison will be a test of President Dmitry Medvedev’s promises to reform Russia, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
A judge will begin reading a verdict that will show whether Medvedev has the will to tinker with one of the most controversial decisions of Vladimir Putin’s eight-year presidency: the jailing of Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man.
A clear decision could take several weeks to emerge because of the number of documents Judge Viktor Danilkin has to read out as part of the verdict.
If the former tycoon is found guilty, "there can be no hope for change in this country," political commentator Leonid Radzikhovsky told Ekho Mosvky radio.
"If he is acquitted it would certainly not mean that changes have begun or are guaranteed; but it would mean that there is serious reason to believe there will be changes," he said.
Russian media reported that protesters gathered in St. Petersburg on Tuesday demanding that Khodorkovsky be given a fair verdict, chanting: "Khodorkovsky’s verdict is a verdict on the future of the country."
The fate of Khodorkovsky, expected to appear at the court confined to a glass cage, is so politically charged that lawyers say it will be decided by the Kremlin, not the courts.
Putin, Russia’s most powerful politician, dominates what officials call a ruling tandem with Medvedev even though as prime minister, he is the president’s subordinate. Both men say they will decide together who will run for president in 2012.
Medvedev has aired ambitious plans to modernise Russia and improve the rule of law but has made little visible progress, and Kremlin critics dismiss his statements as window-dressing for Putin’s continued rule.
The verdict and sentence in Khodorkovsky’s second trial will be closely watched because his current eight-year prison sentence for large-scale fraud and tax evasion ends in October 2011, less than six months before the election.
ARREST A TURNING POINT
Khodorkovsky, whose YUKOS-MENATEP business empire produced more oil than OPEC member Qatar, was arrested on October 25, 2003 at a Siberian airport by armed secret police officers in masks.
His arrest and the sale of his assets to state-controlled companies was a turning point in Putin’s presidency, marking the ascent of hardliners to the pinnacle of Kremlin power.
Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament, met Khodorkovsky’s mother on Tuesday and told her "We share with you our solidarity."
"We hope that tomorrow we will have real justice for Mikhail Khodorkovsky. His case became an emblematic symbol of major problems of the rule of law, legal nihilism and human rights in today’s Russia."
Prosecutors have asked for an additional jail term of six years on charges of stealing $27 billion worth of oil from Yukos production subsidiaries in 1998-2003, a sentence that would keep the former tycoon in prison until 2017.
Danilkin is due to begin reading the verdict at 0700 GMT on Dec 15 in Moscow’s Khamovnichesky court, but analysts said the decision will be taken in the Kremlin.
"Everyone understands that all the courts in Russia are a part of the executive," said Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst. "The Khodorkovsky trial has become a symbol of Putin’s Russia, whether Putin wanted it to or not."
Khodorkovsky says he is a victim of corrupt officials under Putin who feared his political ambitions and wanted to carve up his business empire.
But Putin has compared Khodorkovsky to U.S. gangster Al Capone and accused YUKOS owners of ordering murders. Powerful hardliners could interpret an acquittal as a sign of weakness.
"Putin got caught in a simple trap: If either Putin or Medvedev softens the sentence, then they look weak in the eyes of the silovki," said Oreshkin, referring to the coterie of former military and security services officials believed to drive hawkish Kremlin policies.