Jailed billionaire makes a last plea of innocence

The verdict in the case of former YUKOS CEO will be announced on April 27, 2005 by Judge Irina Kolesnikova. As for now she has retired to consider her verdict, after the jailed billionaire made a last plea of innocence in a case even his lawyers expect to lose. His lawyers and parents hope the court’s decision will be fair.

Khodorkovsky, founder of oil company YUKOS and once hailed as Russia’s richest man, is accused of tax evasion and fraud in a case widely seen as a Kremlin ploy to crush a powerful opponent. Tax authorities have also crippled YUKOS by freezing its assets, demanding $27.5 billion (14.5 billion pounds) in back-taxes and selling off its major oil producing unit to help pay the bill.

Prosecutors have demanded a 10-year prison term for the former oil magnate and his co-accused Platon Lebedev, a Yukos minority shareholder.

Reading from typed sheets of paper, Khodorkovsky stood and addressed the court, saying that two years ago, when the first arrests connected with Yukos, Oil Company began, he could have left Russia. But he said he stayed in the country “because I love Russia.” He sees it as a country that could become a thriving nation.

With a personal and an emotional note, he ended his 39-minute speech, witnessed by his elderly parents sitting in the courtroom.

Also, he said he did not do anything in his career to become “popular,” but he maintained he did “what my conscience and my upbringing told me to do. I wanted to create a civil society.”At the end of his speech, applause broke out in the packed courtroom.

Yukos had been the object of a lengthy campaign by prosecutors and tax authorities, which company officials say is the Kremlin’s punishment for Khodorkovsky’s politics.

Khodorkovsky, who has criticized President Vladimir Putin, funded opposition political parties and expressed a desire to run for office some day.
Putin has said the case is part of a crackdown on corruption, and he denies political motivation.

Observers and defence attorneys have predicted a guilty verdict in the case, widely seen here as Kremlin’s revenge for Mr Khodorkovsky’s financing of opposition parties ahead of elections in ’03, and for his open challenge to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s policies, including the state’s monopoly over oil pipelines.

“Lawyers arguments have no importance for the outcome of the trial — it is a political affair and the decision will be made at the highest levels,�? said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Centre.