Former billionaire oligarch and government critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky went on trial for a second time in Moscow on Tuesday in a case seen as a test of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his promise to end the country’s “legal nihilism.”
Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who fell foul of former Russian president Vladimir Putin — who is now prime minister — and was jailed in Siberia for tax evasion, faces charges of money laundering and embezzlement. He is accused this time of stealing US$25 billion.
His supporters claim the case is a political attempt by the Kremlin to keep Khodorkovsky in prison. The tycoon, once Russia’s richest man, was jailed for eight years in 2005.
Khodorkovsky made his first public appearance in Moscow since 2005 after being flown in last week from his Siberian prison. Looking tired and older, but in apparent good spirits, he smiled and joked with his business partner Platon Lebedev, who is also on trial.
Yesterday’s preliminary proceedings were held in secret. Reporters were allowed into the building to watch the trial on three TV screens downstairs, but court officials switched the monitors off seconds before the case began.
The case is likely to be Russia’s most high-profile legal event this year. Khodorkovsky’s original prosecution was widely seen as retribution after the tycoon funded opposition parties ahead of the 2003 Duma elections.
Some analysts, however, believe the choice of Moscow rather than Siberia as a trial venue is a hopeful sign. President Medvedev has said he wants to replace Russia’s corrupt and inefficient judiciary with a genuinely independent legal system.
“This case is of immense importance because of what it will say to all of us about where Russia is going,” Robert Amsterdam, one of Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, said yesterday.
He dismissed the evidence against the tycoon as “absurd.”
It is not clear yet whether the case, which could last more than six months, will be heard in open court.
Prosecutors say Khodorkovsky helped embezzle 900 billion roubles (US$25 billion) and laundered 500 billion roubles, charges that could see him jailed for 22 years.
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