Jailed former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is on hunger strike to protest against what he says is an illegal decision to extend his detention in a Moscow prison, his spokesman said yesterday.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, was arrested in 2003 after falling foul of the Kremlin, and is serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion after a trial his supporters dismissed as a farce.
Last week Khodorkovsky’s detention in Moscow’s notorious Sailor’s Rest prison was extended by three months by the judge in a second trial that could lead to him being sentenced to an additional 22 years on charges of theft and money laundering.
In a letter addressed to the head of the Supreme Court, Khodorkovsky said the decision violated an order by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that people accused of economic crimes should not be held in pre-trial detention.
“I declare an indefinite hunger strike until I get confirmation that Medvedev has received ... comprehensive information” about the decision, Khodorkovsky said in the letter, distributed by his legal team.
The hunger strike began on Monday, said Maxim Dbar, a spokesman for Khodorkovsky’s legal team.
Khodorkovsky would have remained behind bars even without the extension as his current term does not end until late next year. There is little difference between the conditions in pre-trial detention facilities, where Khodorkovsky is being held, and the general prison.
“He is not worried about his own conditions. He is afraid the decision will become a precedent for others charged with economic crimes,” Dbar said.
Medvedev signed a law banning the pre-trial detention of suspects accused of economic crimes after the death in prison of a tax lawyer awaiting trial drew international condemnation.
Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management, once Russia’s biggest equity fund, died on Nov. 16 in a Moscow prison hospital while awaiting trial for tax evasion. His relatives say he was denied medical treatment.
Khodorkovsky last year went on hunger strike for almost two weeks in protest at the treatment of a jailed colleague who was ill with HIV/AIDS. He ended the protest when Vasily Alexanian was moved to a civilian clinic.
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