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Former Yukos oil executive urges case dismissal

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Former Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Tuesday took the stand at his trial and called for the case against him to be dismissed for lack of evidence. Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev are charged with embezzling USD $25 billion worth of oil produced by their Yukos oil company. Defense lawyers for Khodorkovsky contend that prosecutors have no evidence to support the charges and that they have failed to show how the men could have embezzled the profits but continued covering company expenses and expanding oil production. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are currently serving eight-year prison sentences after being convicted in 2005 on fraud and tax evasion charges stemming from an attempt to embezzle and strip Yukos of valuable assets. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have pleaded not guilty to the current charges, and they face up to 20 additional years in prison if convicted. Some critics of the Russian government have argued that the charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are politically motivated due to Khodorkovsky's opposition to former Russian president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Last month Khodorkovsky criticized Russia's justice system as an "assembly line" that inevitably finds the government's political enemies to be guilty. The statement echoed concerns Khodorkovsky had previously expressed about the fairness of Russian trials and the need for widespread reform of the Russian court system.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 06, 2010 (boomark / email).