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.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS