A former cellmate of jailed Russian oil boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in an interview published on Monday that he had been blackmailed into falsely accusing the Kremlin critic of breaking prison rules.
The infringement — failing to keep his hands behind his back during an exercise period — was subsequently cited as a reason for not giving Khodorkovsky early release from prison.
Igor Gnezdilov made the written accusation against the former head of the Yukos oil company in October, as Khodorkovsky reached the half-way point of his eight-year sentence, making him eligible for early release.
THREATS
Gnezdilov told the weekly Vlast that an official at the Chita prison in Siberia had threatened to block his own early release if he did not accuse Khodorkovsky.
Gnezdilov, a car thief, was freed three months after the incident, while Khodorkovsky is still in jail.
In December the head of the Russian prison service, Yuri Kalinin, alleged Khodorkovsky had broken prison regulations four times. A court threw out three of the charges but upheld the offense cited by Gnezdilov.
Khodorkovsky is serving his sentence for embezzlement and other financial crimes at a remand center in the far eastern province of Chita.
Conditions there were compared with a Soviet-era gulag by lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who participated in his defense.
The arrest and conviction of Khodorkovsky sparked accusations that the Kremlin under then-president Vladimir Putin had used the courts to silence a prominent critic and smash his business empire.
Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, Yuri Schmidt, said last week that his client was considering making a new application for early release following the arrival in power of Putin’s successor, Dmitry Medvedev.
OTHERS
Also jailed in the Yukos affair were the former vice president of the oil group, Vasily Aleksanian, who is suffering from cancer and AIDS, and another top executive, Platon Lebedev.
A Moscow court in February suspended Aleksanian’s jail term for embezzlement because of his illness.
For months he had been asking to be hospitalized, attracting support from human rights groups and other advocates.
Yukos was declared bankrupt in 2006 with debts of US$27.5 billion following a Russian government tax fraud probe. The company’s assets were taken over by the state’s top oil producer Rosneft.
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