RIA Novosti, 26 June 2008

The defense lawyer of the jailed founder of the bankrupt oil firm Yukos said Thursday he had prepared an application to release his client on parole.

Yury Schmidt told Ekho Moskvy radio that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who turned 45 on Thursday, said he "would think about it."

However, the lawyer said that Khodorkovsky, who has served almost half of his eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud but is now awaiting trial on a new set of charges, "would not be freed at once" because the new investigation had not been completed.

The latest charges against Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, also in prison on similar charges, include stealing government shares, illegal oil trading, and laundering $25 billion earned from oil sales in 1998-2004.

Earlier this week, the Russian daily Vedomosti reported that Khodorkovsky could be freed next year if Russia's parliament approves a bill to review sentencing as part of a move to cut the prison population.

The former oil tycoon could be set free along with 50,000 other Russian inmates if the State Duma passes a senior lawmaker's proposal to count a day on remand, or pretrial custody, as equivalent to 1.5 or two days in prison. The former oil tycoon's press service said he spent 3.5 years on remand prior to trial.

When President Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated last month, human rights activists sent him an open letter expressing the hope that Khodorkovsky would be eventually pardoned.

Associated Press, by Vladimir Isachenkov, 26 June 2008

A lawyer for the jailed founder of the Yukos oil company said Thursday he he has advised his client to appeal for early release from his Siberian prison now that Vladimir Putin is no longer Russia's president.

Yuri Schmidt said on Ekho Moskvy radio Thursday that tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who turned 45 Thursday, hasn't made up his mind on the issue yet.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was convicted in 2005 of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in prison in a case that many critics called Kremlin revenge for his criticism and apparent political ambitions.

Schmidt said Khodorkovsky felt it was useless to lodge such an appeal while Putin was in charge. He voiced hope that Russia's courts could be more objective after President Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated last month.

"We would like to believe that times have changed," Schmidt said.

Medvedev has pledged to hold human rights sacred and to protect people from ordinary Russians to foreign investors by fighting corruption and abuse of the justice system.

His words have prompted hopes in Russia and abroad for change from Putin, who was widely accused of rolling back Russian democracy and using the justice system as a tool to strengthen the Kremlin's power.

"Medvedev's words about the necessity of judicial reform and the independence of courts gave us hope," Schmidt said. "The current condition of the justice system is such that people have fully lost their trust in courts, lost any hope they can get legal protection."

Despite his liberal rhetoric, Medvedev has also pledged continuity in the policies set by his mentor, Putin, who has retained clout as Russia's prime minister. Kremlin critics see Khodorkovsky's case as a litmus test for Medvedev's intentions.
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