The Moscow Times, 20 May 2008

Jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in his first interview since President Dmitry Medvedev's election that he was cautiously optimistic about the new president's desire to overhaul the country's notoriously corrupt legal system.

Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence on charges of fraud and tax evasion, made the comments in an interview with The Sunday Times from the prison facility in Chita where he is awaiting trial on new charges of embezzlement and money laundering.

Khodorkovsky declined to comment on whether he would seek a presidential pardon from Medvedev, a lawyer by training.

"The outcome of my case depends on the speed with which reform to the judicial system, which Medvedev has said he wants, will take place," Khodorkovsky said in the interview. "In an independent court only a complete idiot would swallow the kind of case brought against me. Unfortunately, reforms don't happen overnight, but some steps taken by Medvedev's team are cause for cautious optimism."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in March that any question of pardoning Khodorkovsky would fall to Medvedev. By law, Khodorkovsky would have to admit his guilt in any appeal to the president for a pardon. Khodorkovsky maintains his innocence.

Khodorkovsky said in the interview that he believed Medvedev might eventually gain independence from Putin, his mentor since the two served in the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office in the early 1990s.

"For a while, Medvedev will be held back by his personal obligation to Putin," Khodorkovsky said.

Medvedev has issued several calls to crack down on the country's "legal nihilism."

Khodorkovsky reiterated claims that Igor Sechin, Rosneft board chairman and now a deputy prime minister, had orchestrated the campaign against him and Yukos.

Russia & CIS General Newswire, 20 May 2008

Nikosia District Court has rejected a Russian request for extradition of former Yukos employee Vladislav Kartashov and qualified "his persecution to be politically motivated," Mikhail Khodorkovsky's defense lawyer's website said on Tuesday.

Russia requested Kartashov's extradition in order to take him to trial for tax evasion and other financial crimes, the website said.

"Following many weeks of hearing the testimony of witnesses and considering the documents that include several thousands pages, the judge of the district court Alexandros Panayiotou said that no one accused in connection with "Yukos cases" can count on a just investigation in Russia since the process from the beginning to the end is 'impregnated with political motives in violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Extradition,'" it says.

In addition the press release says that the Cyprus Supreme Court upheld on May 13, 2008, the court ruling taken 18 months ago to reject the request on extradition to Russia of an employee of the defense lawyer bureau ALM Feldmans Ivan Kolesnikov also accused in the Yukos case.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 19 May 2008

Former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently in a remand prison in Chita, has been interviewed by the Sunday Times. Yet again, the Russian authorities have granted a British publication privileges that are not available to Russian media.

In his Sunday Times interview, Khodorkovsky accuses one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies - Igor Sechin - of conspiring against him. The ex-oligarch claims that Sechin, who has just been appointed as a deputy prime minister, destroyed his oil corporation "out of greed."

Khodorkovsky, serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud (convicted in June 2005), is awaiting a trial on new charges of embezzlement and money laundering. If convicted, he faces another prison term of up to 27 years.

According to Khodorkovsky, Sechin is behind both the old and new charges against him. He admits to not knowing how Sechin managed to persuade Putin that Khodorkovsky should be prosecuted. "Maybe Putin really thought I was plotting some political coup, which is ridiculous, since at the time I was publicly supporting two opposition parties which at best could have won 15% in parliamentary elections," said Khodorkovsky in the interview. He suggested that most likely, "they did not need any reason, just an excuse to raid Yukos, Russia's most successful oil company."

The Sunday Times notes that many have seen the Khodorkovsky case as "a symbol of Russia's selective justice and dubious court system." It is also "a litmus test for Dmitri Medvedev, Putin's protege and Russia's new president." Medvedev's promise to uphold the rule of law - made in his first interview as president-elect (Financial Times) - enables Khodorkovsky's supporters to hope for a pardon from the new head of state. Sunday Times sources in the Kremlin say that Medvedev could not make such a decision without Putin's blessing.

At this stage, Khodorkovsky is not commenting on the possibility of a pardon. He says that Medvedev will need time to start acting independently; according to Khodorkovsky, Medvedev is still bound by personal obligations to Putin. Khodorkovsky suggests that the outcome of his case will depend on the pace of judicial system reforms, which Medvedev says he wants. Khodorkovsky said: "In an independent court only a complete idiot would swallow the kind of case brought against me. Unfortunately reforms do not happen overnight, but some steps taken by Medvedev's team are cause for cautious optimism."

Khodorkovsky admitted that the hardest part of being in prison is the separation from his family: his elderly parents, his wife, and his four children. In the Krasnokamensk prison colony, where he was held before being transferred to Chita for the new charges last year, Khodorkovsky had greater opportunities to see his relatives.

Khodorkovsky said: "As soon as one sentence is over they'll add another and I can forget about early release. Day and night I'm under constant video surveillance. The nerves of my fellow cellmates usually go after six months, but so far I am coping." He added that isolation and years in prison are not easy, but they are bearable.