Russian prosecutors today began questioning the jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on a new set of embezzlement charges, which would appear to augur badly for hopes of his early release. Dmitry Medvedev, the new President, has yet to make his position clear regarding the former oligarch, widely seen as a political prisoner. Observers say that the next steps in the case will show how serious Medvedev really is about battling what he has called Russia's "legal nihilism". Now in a remand prison in Chita, 4,000 miles east of Moscow, Khodorkovsky was charged all over again, together with his business partner, Platon Lebedev. "Investigators of the Main Investigation Department have brought new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev: charges of large-scale misappropriation and legalisation of money earned through criminal activity," the Prosecutor General's office said.
Russian prosecutors today began questioning the jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on a new set of embezzlement charges, which would appear to augur badly for hopes of his early release.
Dmitry Medvedev, the new President, has yet to make his position clear regarding the former oligarch, widely seen as a political prisoner. Observers say that the next steps in the case will show how serious Medvedev really is about battling what he has called Russia's "legal nihilism".
Now in a remand prison in Chita, 4,000 miles east of Moscow, Khodorkovsky was charged all over again, together with his business partner, Platon Lebedev.
"Investigators of the Main Investigation Department have brought new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev: charges of large-scale misappropriation and legalisation of money earned through criminal activity," the Prosecutor General's office said.
BTW, this is only newsworthy because everyone was assuming Medvedev was about to pardon him... Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
