Radio Liberty discusses how the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev will affect Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Radio Liberty, 19.05.2008

The programme presenter is Andrei Shary. Also taking part is Danila Galperovich, Radio Liberty’s Moscow correspondent.

Andrei Shary: The defence team and family of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos, who is serving a prison sentence for what the court described as economic crimes, have hopes that changes in the Kremlin will lead to his rapid release. His mother Marina Philippovna said as much in an interview with Radio Liberty. Replying to questions from the British Sunday Times Khodorkovsky himself once again confirmed that he considers his arrest was politically motivated. Among those directly responsible for initiating the criminal case against him, Khodorkovsky named Igor Sechin, the former deputy head of the Kremlin administration.

How will the Kremlin now regard the Yukos affair? Will it maintain its harsh attitude or may we expect a softening of position from Dmitry Medvedev?

Danila Galperovich: As soon as those whom Khodorkovsky accused of having started the campaign against him left the Kremlin the question arose: will Dmitry Medvedev now release the former head of Yukos? In an interview with Radio Liberty, Khodorkovsky’s lawyer Yury Schmidt said that the practical terms and conditions were both sufficient for his client to be freed.

Yury Schmidt: All that is required is to respect the laws of the country and there will be no problems. As concerns the first case, Mikhail Khodorkovsky could be released on parole. If, that is, the courts do not receive instructions that he must not be freed on any pretext, and if the administration of the detention centre does not receive such instructions, then the matter can be resolved quite quickly. As concerns the second case, all my client needs is for the investigator to change the measure of restraint. That will not bring the criminal investigation to an end, but Khodorkovsky will be freed.

Danila Galperovich: As Yury Schmidt has emphasised, however, political willpower is of much greater importance for Khodorkovsky’s case than such technical aspects. The situation of the former head of Yukos may well test how far Medvedev is committed in practice to what he has been saying in public, the lawyer comments.

Yury Schmidt: If the president wishes to use all the means at his disposal then they are sufficient. He merely needs to issue a very clear command to the law-enforcement agencies that they must observe the demands of the law. The same demands of the law that, during all the time we have known Dmitry Medvedev as a public figure, he has spoken of the necessity of observing.

Danila Galperovich: The release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky could indicate that a real leader now occupies the Kremlin and not a temporary occupant controlled by others. That is the view of political commentator Stanislav Belkovsky.

Stanislav Belkovsky: Politically, it would undoubtedly be very advantageous to Dmitry Medvedev to free Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It would signify the same for him as the arrest of Khodorkovsky in 2003 for Vladimir Putin. It was on 25 October 2003 that the elites could finally see who was the boss. It was then that the head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin had to resign, the prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov was pushed into the background, and no doubts remained that the individual who three years earlier had resisted his own promotion was now firmly installed on the throne and in control of the situation. The same would prove true of Dmitry Medvedev. Such a step in the form of an amnesty for certain economic crimes, for instance, scheduled for some State holiday, would show that Medvedev was fully in control of the situation in Russia and a more independent figure.

Yet Medvedev is unlikely to regard Khodorkovsky as a victim. More likely he looks on him as a predator who lost out in a struggle with other predators and Medvedev does not feel sorry for Khodorkovsky. His approach to the issue will be extremely pragmatic. And in today’s situation that means looking over his shoulder at Vladimir Putin. In that sense, Medvedev will most likely follow his favourite tactic and wait until the bodies of his enemies start floating past him along the Moscow River. There may be a decision in favour of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in other words, but it will not come today.

Danila Galperovich: Here I should remind listeners that Stanislav Belkovsky himself wrote the report, warning Vladimir Putin of the “oligarchs’ conspiracy” and that Russia might become a parliamentary republic with Mikhail Khodorkovsky as its prime minister. The link between this report and the campaign against Yukos, and against Khodorkovsky individually, was clear. So I asked Belkovsky about this.

Stanislav Belkovsky: No, I do not think I am to blame for Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment. The reasons for the Yukos affair and the Khodorkovsky case are to be found in conflicts between corporations that took the form of raids. It was a very big affair, of course, that has no direct analogies in post-Soviet Russia but in principle it is similar to tens, even hundreds, of analogous raids. In this case Vladimir Putin and Igor Sechin decide to confiscate a major piece of property but Khodorkovsky himself started the conflict with his excessive interest in the properties held by Putin and Sechin in Surgutneftegaz and Rosneft. That was why the conflict developed according to the rules of the system and began with a violation of those rules by one of the participants, namely Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

My report, published on 26 May 2003, contained an analysis of certain trends in the Russian economy at that time. However, I do not consider the Khodorkovsky case to be political. He could not get involved with intrigues concerning the make-up of the parliament, of one or another political party, and their support during the 2003 Duma elections without the agreement of those then running the Kremlin. With all due respect, ideas that Khodorkovsky was the leader of an independent opposition are very exaggerated and could not have had a decisive influence on that case.

Danila Galperovich: Today Belkovsky says that these were raids by one company on another. Five years ago, he said it was a question of politics. That it was then and now remains a political matter, says Marina Philippovna, Khodorkovsky’s mother. She considers that the most important words in her son’s interview with the Sunday Times are not that Khodorkovsky was imprisoned by Igor Sechin but that the former head of Yukos financed the opposition, which is hardly represented in the Russian parliament today. It is because the case is political that Dmitry Medvedev can free her son, not as part of an amnesty or by pardoning him but because he is innocent.

Marina Khodorkovsky: Not only our family and my son but, probably, a great many people hope that the lawyer and liberal Dmitry Medvedev will be able to adopt an independent stance, quickly reforming the courts and freeing them of dependence on those in power. Then there will be a decision to close the case in which many of those from Yukos have suffered, because the whole thing was a fabrication, created out of thin air. That is no secret to anyone, I believe.

Danila Galperovich: Meanwhile Mikhail Khodorkovsky remains in prison and reads through the endless documentation of the new charges against him.