| A Boston-based criminal defense lawyer for Russia's richest
man said
yesterday he has virtually no confidence that oil baron Mikhail B.
Khodorkovsky can receive a fair trial in Moscow on fraud and tax evasion
charges.
Former interim US attorney for Massachusetts A. John Pappalardo said
the
defense team's strategy in part will be to raise awareness of the case
in
the West and bring international political pressure on President Vladimir
V. Putin. The Kremlin leader is widely seen as using the prosecution to
bolster his party's power before upcoming elections and to eliminate a
future political rival in Khodorkovsky, who has hinted at entering politics.
"This is as big a bag job as you can imagine," said Pappalardo,
a partner
at the Boston firm Greenberg Traurig.
Khodorkovsky's "chances of a fair trial are extremely remote,"
he added. "I
don't see it as a likelihood at all."
Khodorkovsky, the 40-year-old chairman of the Yukos oil company whose
personal wealth is estimated at $11 billion, was grabbed off a jet in
Siberia on Saturday by Russian police commandos and hauled to a Moscow
jail.
Prosecutors charged him with fraud, embezzlement, and tax evasion.
Pappalardo yesterday echoed the sentiments of both his client and many
international analysts, who have seen the ongoing probe of Yukos as a
high-stakes game of chicken between Putin and Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky, one of the so-called oligarchs who made vast fortunes
in the
privatization of former state-run businesses after the the Soviet Union
broke up, has openly supported political parties that are opposing Putin's
in December elections to the Duma, the Russian Parliament.
Khodorkovsky also has publicly suggested that he might enter politics
in
2008, the year Putin's second term as president is set to expire.
Pappalardo said the Yukos investigation, including the arrests earlier
this
year of a major shareholder and two top executives, has been a warning
from
Putin for Khodorkovsky to stay out of politics.
Khodorkovsky apparently is ignoring that warning, staying in the country
to
mount a challenge against Putin's iron grip on power.
"It would have been easy for him to pack up a couple of billion
dollars and
leave," Pappalardo said. "They have done everything in this
case to try to
get this guy to back off. All of these things are timed to achieve one
purpose, to impact the election."
Pappalardo said that although Khodorkovsky's defense team includes some
of
Moscow's top defense lawyers, they will be fighting an uphill battle in
the
Russian criminal courts, which allow prosecutors to keep even the specifics
of the charges secret from defendants until a few days before trial.
It will be a major victory just to keep the proceedings in the case
from
being held in secret, he said.
And Russian public opinion is not on Khodorkovsky's side.
The oligarchs, widely seen as having obscenely enriched themselves at
the
expense of working-class Russians who suffered severe economic hardships
during the country's transition to capitalism, have made inviting political
targets for Putin.
While realistic about their chances of prevailing in the courtroom,
Pappalardo said Khodorkovsky's lawyers and supporters will try at least
to
"set the record straight" about the real reasons behind the
businessman's
prosecution.
That will include arguing that the prosecution, viewed by many business
analysts as an example of the government's heavy-handed meddling in the
Russian economy, is a disincentive for outside investment in Russia's
economy.
"One of the efforts that is going to be made is to demonstrate
to the
Western world what a farce this is," Pappalardo said.
See also:
YUKOS
case
| 