RA: Political Motivations Increasingly Transparent in Khodorkovsky Case

Robert Amsterdam has a new column running on the JURIST legal news website, providing an update on the latest developments in the Khodorkovsky case. He writes: “After nearly five years of arguing that the case against Khodorkovsky is political in nature, the truth of his defense counsels’ position has been validated time and time again. Last week the respected Russian business paper Vedomosti reported that the complete political steering of the affair meant that there were essentially three most likely scenarios that could be played out. In any case, the judges will have little or no role determining the precise outcome. Rather, the precise outcome will depend upon the political options facing the Kremlin. By the time of trial, prosecutors will no doubt show up to court wearing jerseys from either “Team Rosneft” or “Team Gazprom”. So transparent are the vested interests of the state-controlled companies in legitimizing their theft of Yukos assets that the prosecutors will themselves be little more than puppets acting out the Kremlin’s orders. The competing clans may not have agreed whether Khodorkovsky should be locked away for another five, ten or twenty years. In the meantime, the defense team, in the words of Yuri Schmidt, is left attempting to puzzle out the winds of change in the Kremlin to determine whether or not the phony trial against Khodorkovsky will be closed or open, in Siberia or in Moscow, short or long.” Read the full article here – and also see previous case updates published on JURIST here and here.