Home
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Time to make dog-raising regulations bite
Community canteens fill an important gap in lives of the elderly
Sunday
- Subscribe
Related News
Former Russian oil tycoon to face trial tomorrow
Source: Agencies |
March 2, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
FROM a tiny cell in one of Moscow's most notorious prisons, the man who was once his country's wealthiest tycoon awaits a trial starting tomorrow.
Former billionaire oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky will once again peer out from a courtroom cage and stand trial for alleged financial crimes related to the oil company that he turned into Russia's largest.
When Khodorkovsky was first jailed nearly six years ago, many Russians saw the downfall of the 45-year-old former Communist Youth activist as a victory over the so-called oligarchs who plundered their country's prized industrial assets in the years after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
"Talk to any normal person, a lawyer, an economist, just any normal person, the so-called logic of this case is impossible (to understand)," Vadim Kluvgant, Khodorkovsky's lead lawyer, told The Associated Press in an interview.
Khodorkovsky's troubles began in 2003 when he was arrested at gunpoint on a Siberian airport runway.
Two years later, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for tax evasion and fraud connected to his Yukos oil empire, a company that was once Russia's biggest producer.
Since then, until his transfer last week to Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina along with longtime business partner Platon Lebedev, he has sat mostly in a Siberian jail some 6,400 kilometers from Moscow.
The Prosecutor General's office announced the new charges two weeks ago, alleging that Khodorkovsky and his partners embezzled and laundered US$25 billion from Yukos and related companies over a six-year period.
Few Russians have sympathy for Khodorkovsky or other oligarchs who got rich through shadowy business deals in the 1990s.
At one point, he was estimated by Forbes magazine to be Russia's richest man with a US$15 billion fortune. But his lawyers say the allegations of a US$25 billion theft border on impossible.
Former billionaire oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky will once again peer out from a courtroom cage and stand trial for alleged financial crimes related to the oil company that he turned into Russia's largest.
When Khodorkovsky was first jailed nearly six years ago, many Russians saw the downfall of the 45-year-old former Communist Youth activist as a victory over the so-called oligarchs who plundered their country's prized industrial assets in the years after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
"Talk to any normal person, a lawyer, an economist, just any normal person, the so-called logic of this case is impossible (to understand)," Vadim Kluvgant, Khodorkovsky's lead lawyer, told The Associated Press in an interview.
Khodorkovsky's troubles began in 2003 when he was arrested at gunpoint on a Siberian airport runway.
Two years later, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for tax evasion and fraud connected to his Yukos oil empire, a company that was once Russia's biggest producer.
Since then, until his transfer last week to Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina along with longtime business partner Platon Lebedev, he has sat mostly in a Siberian jail some 6,400 kilometers from Moscow.
The Prosecutor General's office announced the new charges two weeks ago, alleging that Khodorkovsky and his partners embezzled and laundered US$25 billion from Yukos and related companies over a six-year period.
Few Russians have sympathy for Khodorkovsky or other oligarchs who got rich through shadowy business deals in the 1990s.
At one point, he was estimated by Forbes magazine to be Russia's richest man with a US$15 billion fortune. But his lawyers say the allegations of a US$25 billion theft border on impossible.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
