The Gas Mobster Trial
As Russia’s prosecutorial bulldozer plods its way through the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, another trial is getting underway across town, which oddly makes the former seem relatively open, at least by Russian standards. Some of our more loyal readers may remember that interesting story about Semyon Mogilevich – a Russian version of John Gotti but connected to the state’s gas trade – suddenly getting arrested in January 2008 police raid which was subsequently widely broadcasted on state television. Clearly a strong message was being sent from one of the feuding clans to another in the unending tug-of-war over Russia’s natural gas trade (one Interpol rep told the press that “The arrest of someone this big had to come from the president himself or from the circle around the president”), but who was the message meant for?