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MOSCOW - The Kremlin has been accused of waging a twisted vendetta against jailed billionaire oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky after it brought fresh charges against him, accusing him of embezzling and laundering up to US$25 billion ($36.6 billion).
If found guilty of the new charges, Russia's wealthiest prison inmate could be jailed for a further 15 years, a fate that would consign President Vladimir Putin's nemesis to more of what he has already endured: an obscure and miserable existence in a Siberian penal colony.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, has already spent 1200 days in custody, much of it behind bars in a town built on a uranium mine 4800km east of Moscow near the Chinese border. In 2005, a Moscow court found him and a business associate guilty of large-scale tax fraud and evasion and sentenced both men to eight-year jail terms.
In the Kremlin's eyes he got his just deserts after "stealing" the country's best assets through questionable means. But his supporters saw him as a political martyr punished for opposing Putin.
Robert Amsterdam, a member of his legal team, claimed the new charges were designed to quash any chances that Khodorkovsky had of winning parole. Russia faces parliamentary elections later this year and a presidential ballot in 2008. The Kremlin would not want to see a politically active Khodorkovsky released, he added.
- INDEPENDENT
