In May 2014, Khodorkovsky was praised by former Polish president Lech Wasa and received an award for his efforts to reform Russian civil society. Khodorkovsky was defended in court by an experienced team led by Yury Schmidt and including Karinna Moskalenko. "[13], A 3 October 2014, article in the Wall Street Journal stated that Khodorkovsky planned "to bring about a constitutional conference that would shift power away from the Russian presidency and toward the legislature and judiciary." [109][110] Speaking on the same day on BBC, which claimed Khodorkovsky "spent much of his time in London",[111] he said he was "definitely considering" applying for political asylum in the UK and felt safe in London. "By 2003, Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia, and potentially on his way to becoming the richest man in the world. perestroika", "A Turn to the Left 3: Global Perestroika", "Russia's Khodorkovsky ends two-day hunger strike", "Russian ex-tycoon Khodorkovsky threatens hunger strike", "Russian court cuts Khodorkovsky's jail term", "Mikhail Khodorkovsky's case: The Trial, part two", Khodorkovsky's Opinion Editorial in Vedomosti: Generation M, Khodorkovsky: Conveyor Belt of Russian Justice Legalizes Abuse, "Russia seeks 14-year sentence for Khodorkovsky", "Obama Raises Concerns About Freedom and Judicial Independence in Russia", "Vladimir Putin Defends Central Control in Russia", "Khodorkovsky Was Denied Right to Fair Russian Trial, Court Says", "European Court Rules Russia's Khodorkovsky Denied Fair Trial", "Broken Justice: how Khodorkovsky judge was pressured into verdict", "Natalia Vasilyeva Has Gone Through Polygraph", "Khodorkovsky verdict was ordered from above, claims judge's assistant", "25.10.2013 Worldwide Reading in Solidarity with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and all Political Prisoners in Russia Worldwide Reading", "Mikhail Khodorkovsky Sent to Penal Colony Near Finland", "Statements: 'I'm constantly reminded that I'm in jail until further notice', "In brief: Clark Rockefeller; Kashmir; Somalia; Karadzic; Iraq", "Obama, Clinton blast Khodorkovsky ruling", "U.S., Europe condemn Russia for tough Mikhail Khodorkovsky sentence", "William Hague expresses concern at Mikhail Khodorkovsky sentence", "Medvedev Orders Review of Tycoon's Conviction", "Putin Says Tycoon Could Be Freed From Prison Soon", "Russia's jailed tycoon Khodorkovsky to be pardoned", "Freed Russian oligarch has left for Germany", "Khodorkovsky arrives in Germany after Putin pardon", "Mikhail Khodorkovsky on life after prison and Russia after Putin", "Inside Germany's campaign to free Khodorkovsky", "Khodorkovsky Will Work to Free Political Inmates", "Freed oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky strikes magnanimous tone", "Transcript of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Open Press Conference in Berlin", Freed Russian Applies for Swiss Visa Allowing Travel in 26 Nations, "Hague court awards $50 bn compensation to Yukos shareholders", "Russian court orders arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky over contract killing", "Russia reopens 1998 murder probe; Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a suspect", "Russia Khodorkovsky: Court orders exiled tycoon's arrest", "Russian ex-tycoon Khodorkovsky may seek UK asylum", "Le "geste magnanime" de Vladimir Poutine envers l'opposition russe", "KHODORKOVSKY RECEIVES LECH WALESA AWARD", "Russia ordered to pay $50bn in damages to Yukos shareholders", "Russia misses deadline for $50 billion Yukos payment", "Arbitration awards on multi-billion claims against Russia quashed", "Mikhal Khodorkovski envisage de devenir prsident de la Russie", "Russie: l'opposant Khodorkovski lance un mouvement pro-europen "Open Russia", "Mikhail Khodorkovsky Launches Movement to Challenge Vladimir Putin", "Open Russia Announces Second Online Forum", "Khodorkovsky Declares Sudden Political Comeback", "Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Open Russia and Building Civil Society | A Conversation With Mikhail Khodorkovsky", "Putin Foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky Aims to Remake Russia", "Kremlin critic: Not all Russians support Putin", "Giant Banners in Moscow Serve As Warning To Putin Critics", "Giant poster taunts Russian opposition radio", "Russia summons Kremlin foe Khodorkovsky's father for questioning", "Khodorkovsky 'Accused' In Case Tied To Siberian Mayor's Killing", "Exiled Russian Oligarch Launches Contest to Find Putin Alternative", " " ", "Kritiker entwerfen auf Geheimtreffen drei Szenarien fr ein Russland ohne Putin", "Russia does not need a president, says Khodorkovsky in Lithuania", "Russian political opposition sign declaration in Europe against Putin's regime and war in Ukraine", "Russian opposition convenes in Berlin, signs joint declaration of political goals. [83], In June 2011, Khodorkovsky was sent to prison colony No. October 25, 2013, is the 10-year anniversary of the day that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested. CNN's Matthew Chance speaks exclusively with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, who -- after falling out with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself -- spent more than 10. In the same court case Khodorkovsky's business partner Platon Lebedev had his prison sentence reduced by two years. [45], In June 2010, Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and human rights activist, began a campaign to raise awareness of Khodorkovsky's trial and advocate for his release. [132] On 7 December 2015, Khodorkovsky received an official summons from the Russian Investigative Committee. "[20], During a visit to Moscow in July 2009, President Barack Obama said: "it does seem odd to me that these new charges, which appear to be a repackaging of the old charges, should be surfacing now, years after these two individuals have been in prison and as they become eligible for parole. [106] Khodorkovsky also has personal ties to Switzerland where his wife Inna and two of his children reside. In my opinion, they have to join because only the broadest composition of a coalition in which liberal-socialist (social-democratic) views will play the key role can save us from the emergence, in the process of this turn to the left turn, from a new ultra-authoritarian regime. The Prosecutor-General, Vladimir Ustinov, was appointed by the former President Boris Yeltsin. He implied that major government officials were accepting millions in bribes. We should take our money out and start a new business and a new life. June 18 2022 Receive free Russian politics updates We'll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Russian politics news every morning. Prosecutors filed new charges against Khodorkovsky, alleging that he stole 350 million tons of oil, charges which Kommersant described as "Compared with the previous version, only stylistic inaccuracy has been improved, and some of the paragraphs have been swapped. [22], Khodorkovsky also served as an economic adviser to the first government of Boris Yeltsin. The family were moderately well off, living in a two-room flat in a concrete block in the suburbs of Moscow. Also, it was perceived as risky to testify for the defense. In 2003, Yukos pledged $100 million over 10 years to the Russian State Humanities University, the best liberal-arts school in the countrythe first time a private company had contributed a significant amount of money to a Russian educational institution. When Berezovsky had a confrontation with Putin, and felt compelled to leave Russia for London (where he was granted asylum), he assigned his shares in Sibneft to Roman Abramovich. [144] Following his release, Khodorkovsky addressed the media at a news conference in Berlin, Germany. Advertisement Mikhail Khodorkovsky is an exiled Russian businessman and philanthropist. [15], Following his pardon and release from prison on 20 December 2013 at the same time as members of the protest group Pussy Riot,[113] Khodorkovsky made only a few public appearances until the revolution broke out in Ukraine. [85], On 22 August 2008, he was denied parole by Judge Igor Faliliyev, at the Ingodinsky district court in Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai. But I am a man of ideas. While a student he started to trade goods in the last years of the Soviet Union. Why didn't you go into it? In May 2005, he was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison. Khodorkovsky was once the wealthiest person in Russia. [64], In December 2014, The Guardian reported that Khodorkovsky, living in Zurich, was "plotting the downfall of the man who put him behind bars for a decade. Photograph by Davide Monteleone / VII It has been a year since the. On 26 October 2009, he published a response to Dmitri Medvedev's "Forward, Russia!" Taking into account the time already served, Khodorkovsky was to be released in 2017. [121][122][123] Khodorkovsky said that the organization would promote independent media, political education, rule of law, support for activists and journalists, free and fair elections, and a program to reform law enforcement and the Russian judicial system. Moreover, the government granted Bank Menatep the right to manage funds allocated for the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. They were both opponents of Communism, though they kept this from their son, who was born in 1963. Sibneft was created in 1995, at the suggestion of Boris Berezovsky, comprising some of the most valuable assets of a state-owned oil company. "[20], The young Khodorkovsky was ambitious and received excellent grades. [125], In October 2014, Khodorkovsky visited the U.S., delivering the keynote address at a Washington, D.C., meeting of Freedom House and giving a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. On 9 March 2014, Khodorkovsky spoke at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, where he accused the Russian government of complicity in the killing of protesters.[114][115]. The White House said it brought Russia's legal system into question. In the meantime, he argued that sanctions may not turn Putins core base of about 30% of the population against him, but they will force the rest of the population to question the war. Participants from throughout the country spent their holidays organizing student-governed bodies at summer camps. Mikhail became a fervent Communist and Soviet patriot, a member of a species that had seemed all but extinct. There were few defense witnesses, noted Gessen, "not only because the court turned down most of its motions but also because the prosecution's case seemed so flimsy." He slept in a barracks and often spent his days in a cold solitary cell in retribution for his supposed violating of various rules. The opening of the center eventually made possible the founding of Bank Menatep.[23]. practice in itself. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man as head of oil giant Yukos, spent 10 years in custody for tax evasion and theft after funding opposition parties. [14], On 23 December 2015, a Russian court issued an international arrest warrant for Khodorkovsky whom the Investigative Committee of Russia charged with ordering the murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk, who was murdered in June 1998. In response to his first application, which concerned events from 2003 to 2005, the court found that several violations were committed by the Russian authorities in their treatment of Khodorkovsky. "During the failed 1991 coup by Communist hard-liners", Gessen wrote, "he was on the barricades in front of Moscow's White House, helping to defend the government." [112], In December 2016, a court unfroze $100m of Khodorkovsky's assets that had been held in Ireland. At the end of the trial, in December 2010, both defendants were sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. The exit strategy should be, We dont want to see you in power, but we dont necessarily need to have you leave power right now, immediately. This is an adequate enough exit strategy for him.. [62], On appeal, Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev's sentences were reduced from 11 years to 10 years and 10 months meaning they could be released in August 2014 and May 2014, respectively. Khodorkovsky eventually acquired controlling stakes in some 30 companies. When the 1998 financial crisis struck Russia, Khodorkovsky defaulted on some of his foreign debt and took his Yukos shares offshore to protect them from creditors. Khodorkovsky's arrest on 25 October 2003, when he was hauled from a Yukos plane at gunpoint, was a decisive moment for Russia's business elite. The oligarchs and government both knew that the government would eventually default and that the firms would thus pass into the oligarchs' hands. In 2015, two years after Khodorkovsky was released into exile, he was charged with the 1998 murder of Vladimir Petukhov, mayor of Nefteyugansk, a town amid rich oil fields in central Russia . Many former Yukos employees were arrested and imprisoned and were therefore unemployable after their release, and Khodorkovsky "tried to provide financial support to those who have not found a way to make a living. He said, "I am not an ideal man, far from it. [79], In her statement she also noted that "everyone in the judicial community understands perfectly that this is a rigged case, a fixed trial". This was sufficient for him to forfeit his rights, once the statement was logged in his file. He was appointed Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy of Russia in March 1993. As reported on 20 October 2005, Khodorkovsky was delivered to the labor camp YaG-14/10 ( -14/10) in the town of Krasnokamensk near Chita. . A dozen men, the "new oligarchs", including Khodorkovsky, hit upon the stratagem of lending the government money against collateral consisting of blocks of stock that amounted to controlling interests in those companies. He is dangerous., According to Khodorkovsky, those who believe the West can negotiate peace with Putin and return to business as usual with Russia are entertaining a very dangerous thought to have. Over the past 20 years Putin has dealt with his internal problems four times by starting a war: in 1999, 2008, 2014 and now in 2022, Khodorkovsky said, referencing conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine. Employees of the Bank of New York, which was closely associated with Bruce Rappaport, worked very closely with his Menatep helping Menatep to list its stock in the United States. [75][76][77], On 14 February 2011, Natalya Vasilyeva, an assistant to Judge Viktor Danilkin, said that the judge did not write the verdict, and had read it against his will. Gessen describes the trial as a "travesty" and "a Kafka-esque procedure", with the government spending months "on an incoherent account of alleged violations that were criminalized after they were committed, or that were in fact legal activities." A week after the arrest, the Prosecutor-General froze Khodorkovsky's shares in Yukos to prevent Khodorkovsky from selling his shares although he retained all the shares' voting rights and received dividends. "[20], In early July 2003, Platon Lebedev, Khodorkovsky's partner and the fourth largest shareholder in Yukos, was arrested on suspicion of illegally acquiring a stake in the state-owned fertilizer firm Apatit in 1994. Khodorkovsky is now serving a sentence for tax evasion, and if they are asserting that he stole all the oil his company produced, what did he go to prison for the first time if there was nothing to be taxed? In 2011, Kuchma admitted that he had been told to attack Khodorkovsky "by unknown persons who had come to the prison colony and beaten and threatened him. He later wrote that during this period "I saw business as a game. ", Statements of support for Khodorkovsky and criticism of the state's persecution have been passed by the Italian Parliament, the German Bundestag, and the U.S. House of Representatives, among many other official bodies. Fri 26 Dec 2014 12.06 EST Last modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017 21.30 EST H e was Russia's richest man, and then its most high-profile prisoner. They chose the second path, with results that far exceeded their expectations. [130][131], In August 2015, the Kremlin summoned Khodorkovsky's father for questioning. "[42], In addition, Khodorkovsky has received admiration and support from members of the UK parliament who have noted the decline of human rights in Russia. And then, at best, people were unable to succeed in their career and, at worst, found themselves in jail. Reporting on his comments, the Associated Press stated that "The 50-year-old appeared composed at his first public appearance since his release, saying he shouldn't be viewed as a symbol that there are no more political prisoners in Russia. They can take two weeks to read", "Assemble parlementaire du Conseil de l'Europe", "KHODORKOVSKY IMPRISONMENT HIGHLIGHTED IN BRITISH PARLIAMENT", "Wiesel Kicks Off Campaign To Free Khodorkovsky Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty 2010", Amnesty International document (in German), "Russian Dissident Opens New Chapter in His Anti-Putin Movement", "Khodorkovsky's Cell Mate Names Names in 'Forced' 2006 Attack", "Khodorkovsky Calls Off the Hunger Strike", " : 3. They explained that they had all gone through the period when the same system was allowed. "[22], It was during this period that Khodorkovsky acquired the Yukos oil company for about $300 million through a rigged auction. In December 2010, while he was still serving his sentence, Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were further charged with and found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering, Khodorkovsky's prison sentence was extended to 2014. Vasiliy Aleksanyan, former vice-chairman of the company, who is suffering from Aids, was released on bail in January 2009 after being held in inhuman conditions condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.3 Lastly, Svetlana Bakhmina, deputy head of Yukos's legal department, who was sentenced in 2005 to six and a half years' imprisonment for tax fraud, saw her application for early release turned down in October 2008, even though she had served half of her sentence, had expressed "remorse" and was seven months pregnant. [79] On 24 February Vasilyeva underwent a polygraph test, which indicated that she likely believes that Danilkin acted under pressure. [4][11] At the end of 2013, his personal estate was believed to be worth, as a rough estimate, $100250 million. Roughly 30,000 former Yukos employees were to receive a large pension from the government. Realizing that "business could no longer be just a game" and that "capitalism could make people not only rich and happy but also poor and powerless", he "swore off his absolute faith in wealth just as he had sworn off his absolute faith in Communism. The basis for this was in part because Khodorkovsky "refused to attend jail sewing classes". Khodorkovsky stands in the defendant's box during his trial in Moscow, in 2005. Yukos was acquired from the Russian government by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky 's Bank Menatep during the controversial "loans for shares" auctions of the mid 1990s. He was jailed until December 2013 on charges he vehemently denied, whenwith his influence depleted and his business empire relinquished he was pardoned by Putin and flown to Germany. In early 2012, prior to the Russian presidential election, Khodorkovsky and Putin were said to have both underestimated each other. [61] The law was pushed by President Medvedev after the death of Sergei Magnitsky who died in pre-trial detention in a Moscow prison in 2009. This is a very important result. Second, technological sanctions raise the cost to produce oil and gas, and a reduction in purchases from Europe forces Russia to sell oil and gas to Asia, which Khodorkovsky says is more costly and less profitable. By some estimates, he was supporting half of all non-governmental organizations in Russia, by others, he was funding 80 percent of them. "[20], After the price of oil began to rise again, he established the Open Russia Foundation, in 2001. [40], Khodorkovsky received support from independent third parties who believed that he was a victim of a politicized judicial system. "By this maneuver", wrote Gessen, "the Yeltsin administration privatized oil, gas, minerals, and other enterprises without parliamentary approval." [52] The labor camp is adjacent to a uranium mine, which it once served. During his U.S. trip, he said, "The question of Russian power won't be decided by democratic electionsforget about this. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos boss who was imprisoned in Siberia, won't see a dime from the settlement.
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