Russian prosecutors said on Tuesday they had passed a new case against the jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to a Moscow court, opening the way for a new trial of the former Yukos oil giant chief.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, was in 2005 handed an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion in a case that has caused international controversy.
The businessman and his jailed former associate Platon Lebedev are suspected of new cases of embezzlement and illegal financial operations carried out between 1998 and 2003, prosecutors said in a statement.
“Today the criminal case, along with incriminating evidence, were handed to the Khamovniki district court of Moscow for examination in depth,” the prosecutors said in a statement.
In an interview with Rossiskaya Gazeta to be published yesterday, Russian prosecutor general Yuri Chaika emphasised the gravity of the new charges.
“I am sure that the proof that has been assembled means that there can be no doubt about the guilt of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev,” extracts published by Interfax quoted him as saying.
The pair’s lawyers also confirmed they had received a 14-volume indictment signed by deputy prosecutor general Victor Grinia.
“The bureaucrats of the security forces have wasted many years, huge sums of state money and they own reputation by fabricating these ridiculous allegations,” the lawyers said in a statement.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are accused of carrying out illegal operations worth 896 billion rubles (US$25 billion) between 1998 and 2003.
“These are particularly grave crimes,” Chaika said.
Russia has insisted it is dealing with Khodorkovsky fairly and that he committed financial fraud on a massive scale.
However rights campaigners and some international observers have said the charges have been trumped up to punish the former billionaire for his opposition to former president turned Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
A Russian court in August rejected a request from Khodorkovsky for parole, citing a refusal to take part in a prison training program as one reason for refusing parole.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in