Former Russian oligarch calls for oil theft charge to be dismissed
Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky – accused of stealing $25bn worth of oil – has called for his case to be thrown out
Mikhail Khodorkovsky during his trial in Moscow in 2004. Photograph: Alexander Natruskin/Reuters
The former Russian oligarch and opposition critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky today called for the latest case against him to be thrown out, describing Kremlin allegations that he stole billions of tonnes of oil as "deliberately malicious".
Taking the stand for the first time since his second trial began just over a year ago, Khodorkovsky brandished a jar of crude oil and said state prosecutors had failed to grasp how the oil industry worked. He is accused of stealing $25bn worth of oil and laundering most of the proceeds.
Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003 after defying the then president, Vladimir Putin, by funding opposition political parties. He has been in jail ever since. In 2005 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for tax evasion and he was then charged with further offences as he neared parole in what critics say is an attempt to keep him behind bars.
Opening his defence, Khodorkovsky today produced two glass jars full of oil, which had been hidden under his lawyer's desk. A strong smell of petrol flooded the courtroom, prompting the judge to ask irritably: "How did that stuff get in here?"
"I see nothing amusing about flammable liquid existing in the court where there are so many people and just one door. Get rid of it," the judge, Viktor Danilkin, snapped.
Khodorkovsky said the prosecution had not managed to produce any documentary evidence over the past year to show he had embezzled oil from his company, Yukos, or its subsidiaries. Showing off the jars, he said prosecutors had willfully or ignorantly confused three different concepts: crude oil, processed oil, and the right to the ownership of oil. The prosecution claims he stole 350m tonnes of oil – Yukos' entire output between 1998 and 2003.
Speaking from inside a bulletproof glass cage, Khodorkovsky said he could not have stolen the oil since it belonged to him. He said the judge who found him guilty of tax evasion at his trial in 2005 had agreed Khodorkovsky was the owner. The charges against him were therefore "contradictory" and clearly invented, he argued.
Khordorkovsky added: "This is just more proof of this corrupt and politically motivated process. (This trial) is because of my support for political parties and also because I had the best crude oil company in Russia." Earlier Platon Lebedev, Khodorkovsky's co-defendant, angrily dismissed the Kremlin charges as "rotten". "They are fantastic," he said.
The prosecution wrapped up its case last week.The judge today rejected a petition from Khodorkovksy that he should dismiss the case. He also refused to stand down from the case – another defence demand. Lebedev had earlier insisted the judge was not fit to hear the case since he had failed to throw it out, even thought the prosecution had not managed to produce any evidence.
Khodorkovsky's supporters packed the courtroom today, with his elderly mother and father also attending the proceedings.
Khodorkovsky's mother, Marina, said the case against her son was entirely fictitious. "He wants to give his defence, but nobody seems to be listening," she told the Guardian.
The former oligarch's supporters say that Russia's judicial system is prone to political interference, with judges receiving instructions from the Kremlin in important cases as to what verdicts to give. The defence says it intends to call more than 400 witnesses over the next few weeks, including Putin, Russia's prime minister.
Before his feud with Khodorkovsky Putin warmly praised Yukos for its contribution to Russia's economy. Khodorkovsky's lawyers said that if Putin refused to attend – which seems probable – Russia's paramount leader would be guilty of "public cowardice".
Writing in his blog, Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said: "The very charges underpinning this years-long process … are completely incoherent: you cannot say that someone stole all of Yukos's oil while at the same time sustaining that they had failed to pay taxes on profits made from selling that same oil."
He adds: "The fact that major news organizations even have to pretend that what is occurring in this courtroom is somehow related to the administration of judicial affairs is an insult to the intelligence of the Russian people."
The trial is being regarded as the most important test of President Dmitry Medvedev's pledges to tackle his country's "legal nihilism".
The case continues.
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