Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin's Star Political Prisoner, Is Still in Jail

Depending on your position concerning Russian President Vladimir Putin's political governance tactics, you will be either celebrating or lamenting today, because it marks ten years since former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested by masked special forces who stormed his plane while he was boarding it in Siberia. The Khodorkovsky case has become a key turning point in Russia's recent history. Khodorkovsky's conviction is widely seen as politically motivated, meant by Putin to serve as a warning to other Russians who might have thought about challenging his power. Khodorkovsky's arrest and the subsequent dismantling of his Yukos oil company sent a chilling signal to others and allowed Putin to consolidate his power and tighten state control over the nation's energy sector. Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was arrested October 25, 2003. He was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in prison. In 2010, he received a second prison term for stealing from his own Yukos oil company - the sentence interpreted by many as an instrument to keep him in jail until Putin won a third presidential term. Khodorkovsky is set to be released in August 2014, and his partner Platon Lebedev, who was arrested a few months earlier than Khodorkovsky, should be freed in May 2014. But their supporters fear that Russian investigators could be preparing yet another set of charges to keep them in prison. In May, a top liberal economist fled Russia, saying he wanted to escape pressure from a new probe focusing on an independent report that was critical of the 2010 verdict - investigators claimed that its authors had a conflict of interest because they had previously received money from Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky's son, Pavel, said his father tries not to focus on the prospect of being released : "He is not going to think about any possibility of his release and is not going to try and worry himself too much about what's coming next because, as you can understand, for a person who has spent 10 years in jail, it's nerve-racking to try and always look forward to any particular date because that date has been changed in the past." At the time of his arrest, Khodorkovsky was estimated to have a fortune of around $15 billion. During Putin's first term as president, Khodorkovsky challenged his power by funding opposition parties and also perhaps harboring personal political ambitions. His actions defied an unwritten pact between Putin and top Russian tycoons, called oligarchs, under which the government refrained from reviewing privatization deals that made them enormously rich in the years after the Soviet collapse on condition that they didn't meddle in politics. Khodorkovsky knew he was being watched in the months preceding his arrest, but it still was a shock to many, including himself, that he was arrested and tried. Yukos, Khodorkovsky's company, Russia's biggest oil company at the time and a great favorite with portfolio investors, was sold off in pieces, with its most lucrative assets ending up in the hands of state-owned Rosneft. Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, described his arrest as a family tragedy that also has "broken lives of many people who worked in the company." An important goal of his arrest or at least one of the most important goals: to break him, to make him do what they wanted him to do," Klyuvgant told the AP. "But they failed. ... His spirit is not broken." ~~~~~ But, in fairness, we should note, dear readers, that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Khodorkovsky's trial was not politically motivated, but that Russian court procedures violated his rights. The Strasbourg-based court, which considered Khodorkovsky's case together with that of his business partner Platon Lebedev, has ruled that the tax fraud accusations against them had a "healthy core," and "corresponded to a common- sense understanding of tax evasion." On July 25, the court released its findings, ruling said that Russia unfairly charged Khodorkovsky huge tax arrears, but that "even if there were an element of improper motivation behind their prosecution, it did not grant immunity from answering the accusations against them. Nor did it make the prosecution illegitimate 'from start to finish,' as alleged by the applicants." Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were accused of employing illegal tax-avoidance schemes, such as transferring profits to shell companies in low-tax areas and paying their own salaries as consulting fees. Most if not all large companies in Russia used similar methods at the time. A book entitled "Why Khodorkovsky Went to Jail : Tax Schemes That Are Not Worth Imitating" became a bestseller soon after the verdict. A major cleanup of corporate tax practices followed throughout Russia. Khodorkovsky has been characterized by many as an enemy of the Putin regime rather than a tax evader. ~~~~~ Dear ezaders, it's easy to see why Khodorkovsky was singled out for a show trial. And, the European Court of Human Rights seems to have completely overlooked the selectiveness of Putin's justice that made the case political. Consider another oligarch, Boris Beresovsky, who fell out with Putin and fled to a self-imposed exile in the UK rather than participate in his in-absentia trial in Moscow - Beresovsky was found hanged mysteriously several years ago in his home in southern England. And there was also Akexander Litvinenko, a KGB officer who also fled to the UK after being twice acquitted of charges that basically related to helping Beresovsky. Litvinenko was mysteriously poisoned with a radioactive isotope and died a terrible death in London. Although Russia tried to extradite both men, the UK always refused. And in an indirect slap at the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International has declared Khodorkovsky a prisoner of conscience, and has called for his immediate release. And, the US State Department issued a statement reiterating its concern about "selective prosecution, politically motivated investigation, and lack of respect for due process rights" in the case of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. ~~~~~ You decide whether Mikhail Khodorkovsky deserves to have been in prison for the last ten years - for me, the answer is a resounding "No."