Embattled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the main owner of oil giant YUKOS, arrived at a court in Moscow yesterday for the opening of his trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, will be tried along with another major shareholder in YUKOS, Platon Lebedev. The trial is seen by many as a government-inspired push to jail Khodorkovsky and strip him of his wealth.
His downfall is said by analysts to be the work of people in the Kremlin who fear he was using his wealth to sway public policy and mount a challenge to their authority.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Khodorkovsky, 40, wearing a brown leather jacket, arrived in a large blue van at a side entrance to the Meschchansky district court in Moscow and was led in by police. Inside the building, he waved to his parents, reporters and lawyers before being led into the courtroom.
The trial, before a panel of three judges, is an important test case for President Vladimir Putin, who has said he wants justice to run its course in the YUKOS affair. He has also warned that tax evasion will not be tolerated and that other captains of industry may face prosecution.
YUKOS shares fell by up to 12 percent on Moscow's Micex stock exchange yesterday after at one point on Tuesday plunging 14 percent to US$6 on the benchmark RTS exchange, its lowest level for more than two years.
Human rights activists accuse Putin of manipulating the judicial process to suit the state's interests. The hearing was part of a two-pronged judicial assault on YUKOS and its owners, which comes to a head this week and could put the company in bankruptcy.
A Moscow court will hear an appeal tomorrow by Russia's tax ministry aimed at forcing YUKOS to pay a US$3.4 billion bill for back taxes immediately.
If the court finds in favour of the tax authorities, as expected, YUKOS says it may go bust because another court has frozen the company's assets, making it impossible for YUKOS to raise enough cash in time to pay the bill.
A member of Khodorkovsky's legal team said he was in little doubt that both men would be convicted and receive jail sentences of up to 10 years.
"They are going to be found guilty," Robert Amsterdam, a Toronto-based lawyer, said.
"It is a show trial to help the government expropriate YUKOS," he said.
Some analysts say that if YUKOS is driven out of business, Khodorkovsky and his associates, who control the oil group through a company called Menatep, will be dispossessed of their prize asset.
Investors appear to be giving up hope of a negotiated settlement with the authorities that could let YUKOS off the hook. "I personally do not see any other scenario apart from bankruptcy," said Stephen Dashevsky, an analyst at Aton brokerage in Moscow.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS