On Tuesday Le Figaro used this title to describe a meeting between Khodorkovsky’s mother Marina and Herve Mariton of the ruling UMP party

Fabrice Node-Langlois, Le Figaro, 10.06.2008

Since Dmitry Medvedev became President the fate of the former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has spent almost five years in prison, has again became the subject of diplomatic discussions. On Monday the Khodorkovsky family found support, however modest, in France.

The previous week Angela Merkel raised this sensitive issue during her talks with the Russian President in Berlin. “Issues concerning the administration of punishment and pardons should not be a matter for discussion between states,” the new Kremlin boss then declared. He said it was a matter of sovereignty.

French diplomacy has always been restrained in its references to the Yukos affair, so as not to unduly irritate the Kremlin. However, on Monday a deputy from the ruling Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), Herve Mariton, met in Moscow with Marina Khodorkovsky, mother of the man who was once the richest in Russia and is now a prisoner in Siberia. Regarded as an ally of former foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, Mariton heads the Russian-French Friendship Society. The meeting was a personal initiative but he made sure, at the same time, that the French embassy was informed.

A political dimension

Amnesty International considers Khodorkovsky to be “a political prisoner”. Mariton says that he does not know the details of the case but cautiously supposes that “the trial and detention of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with numerous procedural violations, have a political dimension”. Since the new Russian president has singled out the strengthening of a constitutional state as a major goal Mariton, and Khodorkovsky’s mother, would like to “take him at his word”.

“If the situation of your son, who has become a symbol, improves then that will mean that the situation has improved throughout Russia,” said the deputy to Marina Khodorkovsky who was extremely moved but retained her self-possession. On her last visit to Chita she was allowed to see her son for only three hours, after a 6-hour flight that was a trial for the 74-year-old. Her husband Boris left for Chita in May and she intends to go there again at the end of June. Although Mikhail shows an iron determination and is fighting, together with his lawyers, with all his heart, his mother worries about him and is concerned for his health.

She has not appealed to President Medvedev to pardon her son: “If Misha tells me to do so, I shall.” For the time being, one of Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, Yury Schmidt, says that he has never once discussed a pardon or an amnesty with his client. The grey-haired attorney is convinced, after a painstaking study of the Constitution and the Criminal Code, that a pardon can be granted without any acknowledgement of guilt or act of contrition.