Russia's richest man and Kremlin opponent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, faced another three months in jail Tuesday after a court ruled he must stay behind bars until March 25, after the presidential election.
Moscow's Basmanny Court granted a request by prosecutors to prolong the pre-trial custody of the former boss of the Yukos oil giant, Khodorkovsky's lawyers told reporters outside the courthouse following a two-day hearing.
PHOTO: AFP
They immediately announced they would appeal the ruling, accusing the court of favoring the prosecution and branding the fraud and tax evasion charges against the billionaire tycoon as politically motivated.
"This affair shows that the political power in this country is above law," said Robert Amsterdam, an attorney with a US-based law firm who represents Khodorkovsky but was denied access to Tuesday's hearing by the judge after his arrival in Moscow.
"What is important in the Khodorkovsky affair is that there is no respect for the law being shown by the prosecutors and even the judge," he told reporters.
Another Khodorkovsky attorney, Genrikh Padva, told Moscow Echo radio that, "We consider that the judges' actions prove their bias."
Khodorkovsky returned to the same court that approved his arrest on Oct. 25.
As the hearing entered a second day, President Vladimir Putin hinted in an address to business leaders at a renationalization of firms that broke the law, in an apparent reference to Yukos although he did not mention the company by name.
The court ruling means that Khodorkovsky will remain in prison at least 11 days after the March 14 election in which Putin is expected to easily win another term.
Analysts say Khodorkovsky and his Yukos company are being hounded because he financed opposition parties that threatened Putin's control of parliament.
In the end, liberal and Communist opposition parties backed by Khodorkovsky were crushed by pro-Putin forces in parliamentary elections earlier this month, which handed the government a two-thirds majority.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers complained that they had been given no time to study prosecutors' arguments for extending custody or to consult with their client, and rejected claims that he was planning to leave the country or put pressure on witnesses.
"The ruling discredits the notion of an independent court and shows that the trial [of Khodorkovsky] will not be a fair trial," said Maxim Dbar, spokesman for the Yukos-financed Open Russia foundation.
Moscow newspapers expressed doubt that the Russian authorities would allow the political opponent to be at liberty, particularly considering the boost to Putin's popularity from any crackdown on Russia's super-rich oligarchs.
In a speech at the Russian chamber of commerce and industry, Putin repeated assurances that he was not looking to renationalize profitable state property but did not rule out confiscation of disputed assets.
"We are not planning anything of the sort," Putin said in televised comments at the meeting, in reference to renationalization.
But then he added: "We are not talking about people who violated the law."
Khodorkovsky faces seven charges of tax fraud and embezzlement from the mid 1990s that came as he and partners were building an energy empire that has since turned into Russia's largest oil company.
He faces up to 10 years in jail if convicted and the possibility of losing his dominant stake in Yukos, which has been frozen along with shares held by his partners, which in total amounts to 40 percent of Yukos capital.
The 40-year-old businessman, whose company has been under the blows of prosecutors since June, appeared in court for the second day of closed-door proceedings, locked behind a metal cage in the courtroom.
The future of Yukos, Russia's largest oil producer, has seemed increasingly in doubt with all of its main shareholders either in jail or in exile.
The company was forced to abort a merger with rival Sibneft that would have created the world's fourth-largest oil major and faces the threat of a US$5-billion tax bill and being stripped of its oil production licenses.
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