[Goldfisch]

Tax authorities win delay in Yukos case
Erin E. Arvedlund NYT Saturday, May 29, 2004
Oilman's mother says he is pessimistic

MOSCOW The politically charged criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's wealthiest man, opened Friday and, if convicted, the oil magnate could face a jail sentence of up to 10 years.
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Surrounded by a phalanx of Justice Ministry special forces troops, Khodorkovsky, 41, was hurried into Meshchansky court here. He was handcuffed to one of the guards.
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The billionaire's courtroom hearing, closed to the public, stretched from morning into the late afternoon. Khodorkovsky's parents, sister and friends mingled with the press in the dingy hallway outside the courtroom; a trail of less-celebrated accused criminals trudged back and forth in the courthouse, many also in handcuffs.
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Business associates from Khodorkovsky's investment company, Group Menatep, attended the trial's first day, including Vasily Shakhnovsky, who earlier this year was tried on tax evasion charges. He received a fine and a suspended jail term.
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By day's end, the case had been postponed until June 8 because tax authorities asked for more time to review the case, according to Anton Drel, one of the lawyers for Khodorkovsky, the founder and largest shareholder in Yukos, the largest Russian oil producer.
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Asked whether Khodorkovsky was aware that he could receive a 10-year jail sentence, his mother, Marina Khodorkovsky, said, "Yes, he is fully aware, and ready for it." In the family's first statement on the case, Marina Khodorkovsky also said that her son did not believe the case would be decided in his favor. "In the meantime, he does not regret he did not leave the country," she said. "He was totally aware of what he was risking when he refused to leave Russia."
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The seven charges against Khodorkovsky range from fraud to embezzlement. They are not related to Yukos, but to the 1994 privatization of an obscure fertilizer factory called Apatit, in which Khodorkovsky's bank, Menatep, was a bidder. His Menatep business associate, Platon Lebedev, also is being tried on charges related to the factory.
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Both men have denied the charges.
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The case against Khodorkovsky, who is estimated to be worth $15 billion, is widely considered to be an effort by the Kremlin to warn other rich Russian businessmen. The apparent message: By interfering in politics, they could pay the price for what are perceived to be ill-gotten gains from Russia's wild privatization era.
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Separately, the Tax Ministry is waging a second legal front against Yukos as a company. But prosecutors in the criminal case are expected to try to force Yukos's largest shareholders, including Khodorkovsky, to give up control of the oil producer if he is convicted.
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Conventional wisdom is that President Vladimir Putin of Russia took on the oil baron last year after Khodorkovsky supported and reportedly financed political parties challenging Putin and even considered a presidential run himself. The oil baron also had advocated higher oil exports to the West and private oil pipelines.
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In April, however, after six months in prison, Khodorkovsky wrote lengthy, penitent letters to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti hinting that he regretted his and other oligarchs' actions and praising Putin, who had won a second term in March.
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The opening of Khodorkovsky's case Friday came as the U.S. energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, visited government officials and Russian oil companies, asking them to increase oil exports to meet America's and the world's global energy demands.
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As head of Yukos, Russia's fastest-growing producer among private oil companies, Khodorkovsky has been the most vocal proponent of increased oil exports to the West, a role that Putin came to view as infringing on Kremlin foreign policy turf.
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Khodorkovsky's mother, Marina, said the show of support by family and friends at Friday's session was planned. "It was time to speak out," she said in an interview.
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"No one will see me cry in public, and he's the same," she said, adding that her grandfather had been a successful factory manager in czarist times and refused to leave Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. That spirit of resistance, she said "is in the genes."
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The failure of Yukos as a company would "hurt a lot of people, especially the 100,000 employees," she said. "What will happen to them?"
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Asked whether she was hopeful of a positive outcome to the case, she answered, "No. How would you feel as a mother or father with a son in his position?"
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The New York Times