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.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the