Today a Polish magazine is publishing a version of the attached extended article, will update with link soon.

“Power, Carry out Your Laws!”

By Robert Amsterdam

These words stated by Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the start of a second show trial against him in Moscow this March should echo in the ears not only of the country’s leadership, but also of all those who wish to engage constructively with Russia. For a leadership that does not respect its own laws is one that no one can trust – not its own citizens and not its foreign partners.

On the night this second sham prosecution against Khodorkovsky began, a prominent 67-year-old human rights activist was savagely beaten for among other things supporting the release of Russia’s most famous political prisoner. The timing could not have been worse for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was in London with his international peers. Once again Medvedev’s commitment and ability to fight what he calls “legal nihilism” – and to establish the rule of law in Russia – was sorely tested.

Given the stream of news from Russia over the past year, President
Medvedev faces an increasingly difficult task convincing the world that
his country has achieved the institutional stability that it so
desperately needs in order to play a constructive role on the global
stage. Against a backdrop of severe corruption, the growing economic
precariousness facing Russia since last autumn demonstrates the reality
that a state of normalcy eludes the country’s economy and its governing
institutions. Economic growth and one of its preconditions – the
development of the rule of law – are failing in Russia. From human
rights and property rights to democracy and governance, little seems to
be guaranteed.

These failures are due in large measure to actions by certain
powerful elites in Russia’s own leadership. When the so-called
“vertical of power”, concentrating all authority in the Kremlin, is put
to the test, it has most often looked more like a “horizontal of
incompetence”.

With the Russian authorities’ tendency towards arbitrary and
occasionally irrational acts, we have been left wary of a leadership
that may not in fact have the answers to the present economic crisis.
The abuses of the legal system, the massive and pervasive levels of
corruption, and the musical chairs by which the Russian leadership
manages the government half of the day, and Rosneft or Gazprom the
other half, do not comport with rational views of how statecraft and
business should be done.

Whether domestically or internationally, the Russian state has
betrayed its responsibility to its own people to protect and adhere to
the fundamentals of the rule of law. Not only have key constitutional
norms been undermined, but the whole of the criminal justice and
regulatory systems of the country have been abused and instrumentalized
by a clique of powerful people who have brutally seized and
consolidated the country’s wealth for their own personal benefit – with
global implications.

The last Khodorkovsky trial – which led to a conviction five years
ago this month, in May 2005 – fed into a virus of kleptocracy and
resource nationalism from which the world has yet to recover. This
second trial now underway may be seen as the high water mark of
authoritarian impunity for years to come.

―

Khodorkovsky, former chief executive of the Yukos Oil Company, and
his business partner Platon L. Lebedev, were convicted and sentenced to
eight years imprisonment in 2005 and banished to Siberia. They were
victims of severe abuses of institutions of Russian state power – from
investigatory, prosecutorial and regulatory authorities to the
judiciary – committed by a group of figures in the political
establishment who viewed them as challengers or competitors. The
interests of political and commercial adversaries had coalesced to
orchestrate the state’s incarceration of the two men and raiding of
their company’s assets. When Khodorkovsky became eligible for parole in
2008, those in power who still perceive him as a threat stepped up a
long-dormant effort to find new grounds to keep him incarcerated for a
long time to come. In addition to keeping Khodorkovsky isolated from
society, his adversaries seek to conceal the corrupt and criminal
actions committed against him and other victims of the Yukos affair
with the participation and under the protection of high-ranking
officials.

Politically-Driven Prosecution

The arrest, trial, conviction, and ongoing proceedings against
Khodorkovsky have occurred not for reasons driven by the administration
of justice, but rather for reasons completely alien to justice,
including:

• to confiscate his property and to rule out any possibility of that property ever being restituted;
• to silence Khodorkovsky’s criticisms regarding the causes and scale
of corruption in Russia and to halt his engagement in the political
life of the country;
• to force an end to disagreements over strategies for the development of the country’s energy industry;
• to eliminate Khodorkovsky as a perceived threat to certain officials
in the Russian presidential administration and government.

In attacking Yukos and the company’s top managers and core
shareholders, prosecutors paved the way for a group of officials at the
top of the country’s political establishment to achieve the objectives
above.

The reckless and heavy-handed behavior of the Russian authorities in
their dismantling of Yukos and the seizure of the company’s assets
through dubious and unlawful means are matters of historical record.
Throughout the process, the implosion of the company’s value was wholly
unnecessary, unless the objective was to destroy Yukos as an entity and
to integrate its assets into state-controlled enterprises.

Khodorkovsky’s case is a watershed in Russia’s modern political
evolution because it was intended to be, and has in fact become, a
lesson to all Russian citizens of the limits to the political freedoms
that came with the dissolution of the communist system.

Obvious Groundlessness of New Allegations

The prosecutor’s new embezzlement and “money laundering” allegations
against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are unprecedented in monetary scale
and in the high level of distortion of both facts and laws.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are accused of embezzling 350 million metric
tons of oil worth over $25.4 billion and “laundering” over $21.4
billion. These figures imply that they somehow embezzled the entire oil
production of Yukos subsidiaries over a six-year period and “laundered”
the majority of the proceeds – without being caught by independent
auditors or anyone else until today. The allegations are not grounded
in law, not supported by evidence and are internally contradictory.
Indeed, the allegations are absurd, and completely refuted not only by
defense evidence which investigators refuse to admit into the case
file, but also by common-knowledge facts that are obvious and
undisputed.

Prosecutors are criminalizing and selectively attacking ordinary,
widespread business practices. Criminal law is being invoked in
circumstances where it is inapplicable, while relevant commercial laws
are being ignored altogether. In so doing, the authorities are abusing
their power of criminal prosecution.

The allegations of theft concern the activities of a great number of
Yukos employees performing routine, independently audited transactions.
The elements of theft – illegality and a lack of exchange for value -
are simply not present. The prosecutors have taken it upon themselves
to invent concepts that do not exist in Russian law, but that have a
legalistic ring. For example, assertions made about transactions
between subsidiaries do not consider the context and are instead
labeled with invented terms such as “non-equivalent exchange” or “sale
at an understated price” – terms that are simply not found anywhere in
Russian law.

Likewise, the allegations of “money laundering” lack any grounding.
To launder money, one transforms illegally-obtained funds into
legally-held assets, or conceals the criminal source of funds or other
property to create the appearance that ownership is lawful. The
prosecutors neglect the fact that the funds and oil production they
assert were “laundered” were in fact lawfully on the books of Yukos,
lawfully dealt with in open transactions, and duly reported upon to the
Russian authorities, including tax authorities. To assert that these
assets were “laundered” is a nonsensical misapplication of the term.

The prosecutors’ disregard towards acting within the bounds of the
law also includes ignoring legally established procedural time limits.
Prosecutors stubbornly pushed ahead with allegations surrounding
supposedly improper share transactions, despite the expiry of the
statutory time limit for bringing charges.

Closed Trials

Prosecutors have held closed trials in order to be able to rely upon
invariably damning alleged facts against Khodorkovsky as having been
established by a court of law.

Cases involving several Yukos managers have been pursued for
precisely this purpose. On March 5, 2007, a news release was posted to
the official website of the Russian Procuracy, announcing that a guilty
verdict had been issued that day in a case against two Yukos managers.
The cases involved allegations over Yukos transactions that have also
been imputed to Khodorkovsky. Yet rather than examining the
transactions and all alleged participants in one investigation,
prosecutors proceeded against lower-level Yukos managers first. Having
achieved guilty verdicts against the lower-level Yukos managers enables
prosecutors to refer to court-validated findings in their new
allegations against Khodorkovsky.

Despite their central roles in the alleged facts and obvious
interest in the outcome of these cases, Khodorkovsky was not permitted
to testify in court. Even written testimony and petitions from
Khodorkovsky, stating a desire to testify, were not considered.

Another Yukos manager, Antonio Valdes Garcia, who is a Spanish
citizen, left Russia after being subjected to severe abuses by
investigators. Russian prosecutors have however chosen not to request
his extradition back to Russia, as they are fearful of the light that
would be shone on their abuses if a foreign court is asked to consider
such a request. To avoid embarrassment and loss of credibility, the
prosecutors have instead deemed it in their interest to pretend that
the whereabouts of Valdes Garcia are unknown, and have absurdly pushed
ahead with his trial in absentia.

A guilty verdict against yet another Yukos manager, announced on
April 4, 2008, indicated the extent of the bias against Khodorkovsky.
The verdict refers to Khodorkovsky as guilty of criminal allegations
for which they have not yet been convicted in court. His constitutional
right to be presumed innocent has been completely ignored.

Concealment and Distortion of Evidence through Procedural Manipulations,
Blackmail and Torture

Rather than pursue a comprehensive investigation of the facts
pertinent to the allegations against Khodorkovsky, prosecutors created
a series of separate and parallel cases, including secret
investigations conducted without notice to those under investigation.
In so doing, prosecutors have been able to impound, conceal and
manipulate evidence in artificially isolated cases that would exonerate
Khodorkovsky of the charges he currently faces. Prosecutors have
thereby sabotaged the rights of Khodorkovsky to have access to critical
information for the development of his defense.

Prosecutors have also ignored time limits established by law, and
benefitted time and again from deadline extensions whenever desired.
Investigations concerning Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were launched in
2004, yet neither was given any opportunity to testify. Their first
interrogations as suspects did not occur until two years later in 2006.
The law holds that preliminary investigations are not to last longer
than two months. Prosecutors finally brought new charges against
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev on February 5, 2007. After a prodigiously
productive eleven-day investigation, on February 16, 2007 the
prosecutors presented 127 case volumes for the defendants to become
familiar with. Two years later, following numerous extensions of the
pretrial detention period, their case was sent to court.

Since 2004, investigations of various matters were indiscriminately
launched, paused, restarted or dropped by prosecutors, allowing them to
corral witnesses and confiscate evidence. Meanwhile, petitions from
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev asking for explanations of the charges against
them were unsuccessful, regardless of the fact that they are entitled
under law to request and receive such explanations.

Prosecutors have failed to meet the legal requirements for
initiating their case on allegations of embezzled oil proceeds. Under
Russian law investigators must open such cases based upon a complaint
from a harmed party or a suspicion of criminal activity. Yet no case
was ever formally initiated for the alleged embezzlement of oil
proceeds. Nor has a proper investigation of the relevant facts
occurred. Investigators have collected materials from cases they are
pursuing separately, including copies of interrogation transcripts and
other documents, and simply copied them into the new case file of
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. Virtually no real investigative work has
occurred over the past two years, with the overwhelming majority of
documentation on record simply pulled in from other cases. Reams of
documents including raw financial data are dumped into the case file;
their origin is unknown, their relevance is unintelligible, and the
result is a mess of slapped-together data that is a nightmare to
navigate. Many items are incomplete, being for example just one or
several pages extracted from an unattributed document, the rest of
which does not appear in the case file. In contrast, the investigators
have refused to accept and consider over 270 documents and Yukos
financial data provided by the defense.

Whereas prosecutors officially designated Chita, Siberia as the
venue for the investigation of new charges against Khodorkovsky, in
reality the case has been administered from Moscow. All key procedural
decisions are taken in Moscow and case-related documents have been
signed there and then transmitted to Chita. This is contrary to the
legal requirement that the investigation actually be administered in
Chita, the officially designated venue. Clearly, Khodorkovsky was
simply being isolated thousands of kilometers away, in a place that had
no connection with the activities under investigation. This
significantly restricted his participation in the investigatory process
and complicated communications with his defense counsel.

Furthermore, by holding Khodorkovsky for two years in a pretrial
detention unit, the prosecutor changed his regime of incarceration from
the more flexible conditions of a prison colony to the harsher
conditions of pretrial detention in small jail cells. Holding him for
so long as a criminal suspect under arrest allowed the prosecutor to
isolate Khodorkovsky far more than if he was serving his sentence in a
prison colony. In pretrial detention, he has been kept under
round-the-clock surveillance, deprived of exercise and fresh air and
had family visits restricted to a minimum. Under Russian law, even if
prisoners are under investigation for new allegations, they are to
continue to serve their existing sentence as stipulated by the court’s
verdict. If at all, Khodorkovsky should have been serving his sentence
in an appropriate prison colony and not in a pretrial detention unit
where the conditions are far more severe and inhumane.

An investigation was run in parallel against Vasily G. Alexanyan,
former Yukos general counsel arrested in April 2006 and held in
pre-trial detention until January 2009. Alexanyan refused to provide
false testimony against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in exchange for
desperately-required medical treatment. Despite his release from
pre-trial detention in January 2009, due only to an intervention by the
European Court of Human Rights, Alexanyan is now near death due to a
severe deterioration of his health while incarcerated in pretrial
detention. His ordeal vividly demonstrates the methods and morals of
the prosecutors, engaging in torture in order to pressure people to
slander Khodorkovsky and Lebedev with lies.

Interference with Defense Counsel

Prosecutors have committed gross violations of procedural rules
concerning defense counsel. Searches and seizures without court
approval have become routine. Privileged and confidential documents
have been confiscated. Authorities have temporarily detained defense
counsel and harassed them and members of their families. Just this week
the legal defense team was given reason to believe that its
communications – by telephone and by other means – were being
eavesdropped upon by the FSB, on the order of prosecutors. Yet to date
complaints over any such actions have been consistently ignored.

Disbarment proceedings have been threatened against defense counsel
by authorities without valid cause, as a form of intimidation and
vengeance for defending Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. Prosecutors have gone
as far as to implicate defense counsel themselves with criminal
liability due to their professional association with Khodorkovsky and
Lebedev. This has made it difficult or impossible for defense counsel
to perform their duties.

For my part, I was ejected from Russia in September 2005, and have been banned from the country for five years.

Rulings by Foreign Courts and Law Enforcement Authorities

There is a prevailing consensus internationally that with respect to
Yukos-related cases, Russia’s justice system is so politically
corrupted that no foreign court respecting human rights and the rule of
law should morally or legally cooperate with Russian prosecutors.

In a landmark decision in August 2007, the Swiss Federal Tribunal
ruled that Switzerland is no longer to comply with Russian prosecutors’
requests for assistance concerning the Khodorkovsky/Yukos cases. The
Tribunal validated a series of appeals from Khodorkovsky and several of
his former business partners who had asserted that if Swiss authorities
assisted their Russian counterparts, grave moral and legal injustices
would result. The judgment cited several legal violations in the
criminal proceedings against Khodorkovsky and his associates, and
deemed those proceedings to be politically motivated. According to the
judges, “Switzerland would be in breach of its international
obligations if it cooperated with a foreign criminal proceeding
presenting a risk of treatment of an accused, particularly
discriminatory treatment, which is inconsistent with minimal guarantees
recognised under international law.” The Tribunal also revealed details
of Russia’s inability or refusal to satisfy Switzerland’s requests for
justifications regarding the Khodorkovsky-related requests: Russia’s
responses to legitimate Swiss questions were deemed “scattered and
evasive” and without credibility. This was the first time in history,
outside of extradition cases, that Switzerland rejected a request to
provide assistance to prosecutors from another country.

In numerous other cases outside of Russia, courts and public
authorities have consistently sided with Yukos-connected individuals
fleeing the Russian justice system. Great Britain, Germany, Italy,
Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Lithuania and Estonia have all refused to assist
Russian justice officials in their efforts against Yukos-connected
individuals abroad.

The Second Trial

In contrast to developments outside of Russia, Khodorkovsky has not been as fortunate in domestic courts.

From the outset of the trial this March, the defense has diligently
filed motions addressing both the substance of the prosecutor’s
allegations and procedural failings. All defense motions are reasoned
and grounded in accordance with Russian law. The most important of
these motions, and related statements made in court by the defendants,
have sought to force the prosecution to explain how there could be
embezzlement of oil when the same volumes of Yukos production were
reported, accounted for and heavily taxed; or how there could be “money
laundering” without any underlying crime.

Khodorkovsky noted that despite repeatedly requesting explanations
from the investigators regarding the charges, and despite signing a
series of statements asserting that his questions had not been
answered, the court nonetheless erroneously declared that answers had
in fact been provided to Khodorkovsky in conformity with the law.

Another series of motions addressed the evidentiary base of the
prosecution’s case. The prosecution continues to bandy about the
stigmatizing terms “embezzlement” and “money laundering” – yet has been
unable to provide any rational explanation of the charges grounded in
evidence. The defense therefore motioned for the following:

• That certain exculpatory evidence be added to the case file -
either documents readily available to the defense, or documents being
concealed or impounded by prosecutors;
• That where illegal seizures of evidence had occurred, such materials be excluded from the case file;
• That the court subpoenas over 250 witnesses to testify in support of the defense;
• That the court avail itself of procedures available to obtain
relevant evidence from persons abroad, located in the United States and
Europe, who have stated they are willing to cooperate with Russian
authorities;
• That public records be subpoenaed in order to prove the whereabouts
of the allegedly embezzled Yukos oil in what was a tightly-controlled
state-run pipeline network;
• That publicly available Russian government documents from the 1990s
be added to the case file, to demonstrate that government policy had
been geared towards the development and functioning of Yukos as a
vertically-integrated energy company;
• That the court consider a whole series of judgments in relevant cases
adjudicated by other Russian courts; noting that official copies of the
texts of several of these judgments, germane to supporting the defense
position on numerous issues, had suddenly become impossible to acquire
from either public or private database sources.

In addition, the defense filed motions regarding problems in the
case file that are illustrative of the slipshod nature of the
prosecution’s work. Motions have sought corrective actions regarding
the following:

• Mathematical errors in the charges;
• A multitude of inaccuracies and fabrications in documents translated by the procuracy from English to Russian;
• Numerous missing pages from documents in the case file;
• Entire documents referenced but absent from the case file.

The defense further pointed out the procedural ploys used by the
prosecutors in order to ensure that Khodorkovsky remains in the
confines of strict incarceration, reducing his access to legal counsel
and family visits.

The defense motions were challenged by the prosecution, who
routinely asserted either that the motions were “premature”, trying to
push the judge to rule on matters that should be dealt with later in
the trial; or that the motions represented delay tactics by the defense.

The defense maintained that its position that all matters raised
demanded immediate resolution, both for a fundamental understanding of
the substance of the charges and for a fair hearing of the defense
position. The prosecution’s assertion that the defense was engaging in
delay tactics was wholly disingenuous, since many of the defense’s
requests had been made – and ignored – on multiple occasions dating
back two years. Furthermore, one effect of the investigators’ and
prosecutors’ longstanding refusal to seek and admit corporate records
to the case file is that as document retention periods expire, critical
exculpatory evidence from 1998-2000 can legally be destroyed by third
parties who are under no obligation to preserve data for the court.

Moreover, due to the prosecutor’s long delay in bringing this case
to trial, the statutory time limit for bringing charges on certain
alleged improper share transactions has expired. Despite the expiry of
this statutory time limit, the court has agreed to hear the
prosecution’s allegations. The defense has and will nonetheless
vigorously defend the legality of those share transactions.

Almost every single motion filed by the defense was rejected by the
court. The judge has overwhelmingly sided with the prosecutors, making
short rulings that did not address the relevant law and legal reasoning
presented by the defense. Such short rulings without reasoning are
inconsistent with the requirements of Russian law. The only concessions
made to the defense were to allow certain court precedents from 1999
and 2000 to be added to the case file, and to admit a list of defense
witnesses – although the judge reserved the right to reject any
particular defense witness on a case-by-case basis when the defense
seeks their testimony later in the trial.

No evidence presented or requested by the defense has been added to
the case file. In contrast, investigators and prosecutors have
previously been allowed to add materials to the case file as they
desire.

The defense noted that with the vast majority of their motions
rejected by the judge, the capacity of the court to render a reasoned
and lawful decision was substantially hampered – if not eliminated.
Khodorkovsky asserted that some of the prosecutors had in fact exposed
themselves to future prosecution for making false statements to the
court.

The defense has posted the text of its motions and related
documentation on the Internet, with English translations. Any
interested person is free to conduct their own assessment of the
validity of the new charges against Khodorkovsky, the strength of the
defense team’s arguments and the fairness of the trial to which the
defendant is being subjected.

On April 21, 2009, Agence France Presse described the unfolding
trial as a “theatre of the absurd”. Prosecutors have stubbornly stuck
to a script – their indictment – which denies legal and factual
realities ranging from the fundamental definition of “crime” to the
highly regulated structure and operation of vertically-integrated
energy companies. They have failed to elucidate how it was possible
that Yukos covered its operating expenses and invested heavily in
capital improvements and acquisitions and paid dividends – all
financial operations recorded on the books of Yukos and several other
companies and banks – when the funds necessary for these operations
were allegedly stolen. A rudimentary examination of the audited
financial statements of Yukos renders the embezzlement allegations a
factual impossibility. Furthermore, in their calculations of alleged
theft, the prosecutors impute world prices for refined and transported
oil to transactions for unprocessed wellhead output on the domestic
Russian market – denying that differences in price represent
refinement, storage, transport, taxation, and other downstream costs.
The prosecutors also demonstrate complete ignorance of the transfer
pricing practices of Yukos, which continue to be employed by Rosneft
and other Russian and international companies today in full compliance
with the law.

Ironically, the prosecutors will on one hand refuse to clarify major
questions, such as whether they are alleging it was oil products that
were stolen or proceeds of the sale of such products, and where the
stolen goods or funds were taken; they will remain silent on the
method, time and place the alleged crimes were committed; yet on the
other hand they will carefully read out ruble and dollar sums allegedly
embezzled to the level of detail of kopecks and cents. Prosecutors have
been permitted to drone on for hours and days on end, reciting an
indictment that everyone in the courtroom has already read; yet when
the defendants have attempted to address the substance of the
indictment, they have been continually interrupted by prosecutors and
their statements have been cut short by the judge.

The defendants have concluded that the prosecutors do not comprehend
basic principles of law and business management and fundamentals of the
energy industry, and that they have a vested interest in a
predetermined outcome at the trial and will exert enormous pressure on
the judge to achieve that outcome.

On April 3, 2009, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, former German
Minister of Justice and current representative of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, stated, “I cannot understand why
Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have been put on trial a second
time. I have the impression, however, that it is being done so as to
keep them in prison as long as possible.”

Is there Hope for a Fair Verdict?

The behavior of the prosecutors in the courtroom has only weakened
their credibility and reinforced the incongruity between obvious facts
and the allegations of embezzlement and “money laundering”. With each
ruling by the judge favoring the prosecution, the window of opportunity
for a fair judgment seems to be closing, although it still cannot be
excluded.

The judge is undeniably in the unenviable position of being the
focus of incredible direct or indirect pressure by the prosecutors, and
those behind them, to rule against the defendants. On the other hand,
in line with President Medvedev’s declarations regarding the importance
of an authoritative and independent judiciary in Russia, the judge
cannot render credible guilty verdicts on the deficient legal grounds
that have been provided.

This trial carries enormous symbolic value for Russia and the world.
Will the “tax terrorism”, state-backed raiding of private property and
trampling of human rights of recent years be validated and continued?
What messages would guilty verdicts send about the competence and
independence of the Russian justice system and the prospects of
President Medvedev’s desire to stamp out “legal nihilism”? What would
be the effects on foreign investors, foreign governments and in foreign
or international tribunals? If the court can ignore both facts and laws
and render a judgment “on order”, will that not signal to law
enforcement and judicial authorities across the country that they can
do the same, with impunity? As posited by Khodorkovsky, will the court
“understand that it is a court, and not a cheap instrument for raiders
and corruptioneers? Will it help the President and the country? We’ll
see.”

―

As the financial crisis takes its toll in Russia, we may not be that
far from a real crisis of popular support for the regime. Having bought
public complacency through several years of wild energy revenues,
indications are that people are starting to care again about the
fundamentals of Russian governance. Given the institutional weaknesses
plaguing the country in these harder economic times, official rhetoric
about reform must turn to real action, and really quickly. Otherwise,
the country risks becoming a landscape of broken dreams contrasting the
recent promise that Russia was building something new.

The pattern of abuse of state authority in Russia over the past
several years has undermined the very legitimacy of those ruling the
country today. This is unfortunate because the necessary architecture
for the existence of the rule of law, and a thriving economy, largely
exists in Russia. Yet enormous damage has been done to Russia’s
development through abuses permitted under the cover of state
authority. Those guilty of this damage have betrayed the real progress
that has been made – in law and practice – in the development of an
increasingly prosperous rule-based market economy.

For Russia’s international peers, including Poland and the countries
of the European Union acting in unison, it has become more important
than they might think not to turn a blind eye from incidents that time
and again have demonstrated the country’s crisis of governance when it
comes to the rule of law and, in particular, human rights.

The events of the past five years have made Khodorkovsky the
Sakharov of a new generation of Russian political prisoners. As with
Sakharov, who was the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb,
Khodorkovsky’s past – his actions and experiences in the difficult
transition environment of the 1990s – should not cloud judgment about
the fierce Kremlin campaign against him. Indeed, it was his experiences
of the 1990s that solidified Khodorkovsky’s convictions about
government responsibility, corporate transparency and robust civil
society.

If the international community begins to neglect Khodorkovsky, the
Kremlin and other corrupt leaderships around the world will be further
encouraged to devise legal processes using any of a broad variety of
seemingly legitimate pretexts to deny the peaceful exercise of
political rights by regime opponents.

Khodorkovsky provides one of the most prominent examples. Ignoring
or downplaying his fate, or that of a long list of other victims of
Moscow’s authoritarian streak, is not only to do a great disservice to
Russia today. This also undermines our own long term interests. A
stable, prosperous and rules-based Russia would be a welcome
contributor to the pressing global challenges that should unite us all.

Last 5 posts by Robert Amsterdam

• How Renaissance Capital Survived while Hermitage Was Stolen - November 24th, 2009
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• Practicing Legal Nihilism - November 24th, 2009
• Energy Blast - Nov 24, 2009 - November 24th, 2009
• Today in Russian Business - Nov 24, 2009 - November 24th, 2009