December 27th, 2010 11:35 pm PT

http://www.examiner.com/eurasian-affairs-in-los-angeles/putin-court-convicts-khordokovsky-and-lebedev

A Russian court has found Mikhail Khordokovsky and Platoon Lebdev guilty of embezzlement and money laundering.  Part of the ruling was read in court on Monday, December 27th by Judge Viktor Danilkan.  Judge Danilkan will read the rest of his lengthy ruling from the bench of the Khamovnichesky District Court on Tuesday, December 28th.  Judge Danilkan issued an order banning the media from his courtroom as he reads his ruling.

Amnesty International describes these criminal proceedings as political in nature.  Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel describes Mr. Khordokovsky a political prisoner and calls for his release.

Mr. Khordokovsky was CEO of Yukos Oil, once one the world’s privately owned oil companies.  With Yukos producing 20% of Russia’s oil and 2% of the world’s oil, Mr. Khordokovsky was Russia’s richest oligarch.  Mr. Lebedev was Mr. Khordokovsky’s business partner.  He headed Group Menatep, a holding company that owned the majority of Yukos’s shares.

Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev acquired Yukos when the Russian government privitized it in 1998.  Poorly run, inefficient, and saddled with $3 billion in debt, Yukos was quickly turned around with technology, investments, and organizational prowess.  Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev also made Yukos into a Russian model of honesty and transparency.  Soon, Yukos became so successful that it was Russia’s single largest taxpayer.

Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebdev made many enemies by insisting on non-criminal, honest and transparent business practices.  As murdered investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya observed: Khordokovsky “began creating a new Yukos, but all around him people remained at large who had absolutely no desire for transparency, people whose very nature is to work in the shadows, away from the light.  They set about devouring Yukos, because light is unwelcome in the midst of darkness.”  Page 310, A Russian Diary.”  However, Mr. Khordokovsky pushed for reform in Russia went far beyond business.  In 2003, he founded a school to train Russian students in democratic principles called the National School of Public Policy.  He also founded the organization, Open Russia, which, like George Soros’ Open Society, promoted free speech, democracy, civil society, and anti-corruption.  He funded Open Russia with $20 million grant.

With the 2004 presidential elections fast approaching, Mr. Khordokovsky also began funding Russian opposition parties, such as Yobloko and the Union of Right Forces.  They are opposition parties because they stood in opposition to Mr. Putin and his United Russia party.

Mr. Putin is an authoritarian.  Modeling himself after the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, he has rebuilt Russia as a one-party state.  Fearing free and fair elections, President Putin ordered the arrest of Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev.

In July 2003, Mr. Lebedev, was arrested.  In October, 2003, they arrested Mr. Khordokovsky. Both were charged retroactively on tax fraud and a privitization crime.  .

The charges brought against Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev were absurd,  They were a pretext for the political persecution of a powerful advocate for democracy and a funding source for the country’s democratic opposition.  In 2005, they were convicted and given an 8 year sentence.  Because they have been incarcerated since arrested in 2003, they were scheduled to be released in 2011.

However, Mr. Putin is running for president again in 2012.  To insure that the 2012 election does not accidentally become fair and democratic, new charges were brought against Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev.  As with the prior criminal proceeding, this one is also a pretext for political persecution.

The essence of the embezzlement and money laundering charges is that Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev stole 350 million metric tons of oil from Yukos sometime between 1998 and 2003.  350 metric tons is 80% of Yukos Oil production during that time period, or 100% of its production during a 6 year time period.  If true, it would mean that Yukos almost never produced any oil to sell, which is clearly not true.  Yukos produced and sold a huge amount of oil during this time, more than when the Russian government ran it.  Moreover, it was essential to the government’s tax fraud case thatYukos had sold the oil, as oppose to being diverted to Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebdev.  Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev could not have committed tax fraud and embezzled the same oil.

350 metric tons of oil is the carrying capacity of a train wrapped around the earth 3 times.  It is worth $25 billion.  Someone would have noticed it missing.  But, a Price Waterhouse Cooper accounting found not one drop gone or out of place.  One of Mr. Putin’s former trade ministers testified at trial that there is no evidence of a crime.  In fact, the evidence establishes that the oil producers who the government claims were the crime victims were paid in full at cost, and they also were paid $2 billion in profit.

The court is likely to sentence Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebed in January after the Winter Break.  Prosecutors have asked for 14 more years of prison for both.

Russia has once again used its courts for a political purpose.  It demonstrates an utter disregard for human rights and th contmpt for the rule of law.  In convicting Mr. Khordokovsky and Mr. Lebedev, Mr. Putn has proven that his country is once again a heartless dictatorship.

One of the hallmarks of Mr. Putin’s foreign policy has been an obsession with color revolutions – revolutions by peaceful democratic elections.  George Soros’ Open Society was very much involved in those revolutions.  The relentless persecution of Mikhail Khordokovsky and Platoon Lebedev is a similar attack on Open Russia and democracy.