Khodorkovsky jailed for nine years

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/05/31/khodorkovsky.ap/

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"Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been found guilty of an array of charges including fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison, minus time served.

The declaration of guilt and sentence came in the 12th day of the laborious verdict-reading process in the most closely watched trial of post-Soviet Russia.

Khodorkovsky, 41, former head of the Yukos oil company, has already spent 583 days in jail, meaning he would serve about another seven-and-a-half years in prison.
He was charged with fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement in a case that his supporters say is rooted in Kremlin resentment of his funding of opposition parties.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, looked straight ahead as the sentence was pronounced. Asked if he understood what had been pronounced, he said "no sane person" could understand the verdict."

MOSCOW -- One year and three days after it began, the biggest trial in post-Soviet Russia ended Tuesday with a nine-year sentence for fallen tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose oil empire was broken up after he became a political challenge to President Vladimir Putin.

. . .

In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush criticized Khodorkovsky's trial in unusually blunt language aimed at a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. "Here, you're innocent until proven guilty and it appeared to us, at least people in my administration, that it looked like he had been adjudged guilty prior to having a fair trial," Bush said.

While Khodorkovsky, once estimated to have a $15 billion US fortune, is widely unpopular as one of the "oligarchs" who became immensely wealth during the murky post-Soviet privatization of state industries in the 1990s, many Russians saw political motives behind his trial.

. . .

Most analysts have interpreted the Yukos affair as essentially aimed at imposing government supremacy over business after a decade in which big business, epitomized by Khodorkovsky's empire, exploited the weakness of the post-Soviet state to amass ever larger fortunes.

In this, market watchers say, Putin's administration succeeded, at a heavy cost. "I don't think any of the big business groups will want to take on the Kremlin openly now," Roland Nash, head of research with Renaissance Capital, told Dow Jones Newswires.

http://www.canada.com/fortstjohn/story.html?id=1a752192-d547-4b8f-9aeb-8a2add584103&page=2

http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=f35da662b4854503

Yukos chief, associate, jailed for nine years
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Big News Network.com Tuesday 31st May, 2005

Mikhail Khodorkovsky who took over the Yukos oil conglomerate has been jailed for nine years after being found guilty of six charges including tax evasion.

'The sentence had to be long enough so Khodorkovsky was in jail in 2008, at the next presidential elections,' political analyst Marsha Lipman at the Carnegie Moscow Centre said after the sentence was handed down.
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Khodorkovsky's case has brought international condemnation and has badly dented foreign investment in Russia. U.S. President George W. Bush has openly crititicized the arrest and trial of the former Yukos chief.
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Bill Gates watch it when you go into countries like Russia China India ... How the mighty Billionaires fall when in a country where the dictator says your in jail and thanks for all your money!!!

Nobody feels sorry for a Billionaire honey!!!

Khodorkovsky is one of the infamous Oligarchs who looted Russia during the Yeltsin years; his fellow billionaires are weeping buckets for him, hence the 'international condemnation'

Khodorkovsky crossed Putin and is paying the price for that. This is a power play on Putin's part; it's not good news.

Think of it as the Iraq war on a smaller scale. Getting rid of Saddam, under almost any other circumstances, would have been good news; but not when the intention was to loot Iraq.

been moved back into public ownership.

This seems like an improvement from being
privately held by the people who were able to rig
the privatization during the 1990's.

With the oil in public hands at least the benefits
can flow to the Russian people rather than being sold
off to outside oil companies which was the path I
understand Khodorkovsky to have been on.

To bad for non-Russian oil companies, but possibly
better for the people who the assets had been stolen
for a pittance.

It seems anyone who became fantastically wealthy during
the mass privatization of state assets in Russia is very
likely to be a crook. I shed no tears for him.

....the political controlling capital, what a novel idea....