Khodorkovsky appeals against move to new jail

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

MOSCOW, Jan 12 (Reuters) Lawyers for jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky have filed a legal appeal against his move to a new prison, calling the transfer an act of ''flagrant sadism'', his representatives said.

Khodorkovsky is serving eight years for fraud and tax evasion, charges he says were fabricated by Kremlin opponents.

He was transferred last month from his Siberian prison camp to a detention centre in the same region.

One of his lawyers, Yuri Schmidt, said the transfer was unlawful and Khodorkovsky, founder of the YUKOS oil company, was being kept in intolerable conditions and being denied proper access to his legal team.

''This flagrant sadism once again confirms that the persecution of YUKOS's former bosses is being driven by someone's ill will and personal hatred towards them,'' Schmidt said in a letter to Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika.

Officials said Khodorkovsky was moved to make it easier for detectives to question him as part of continuing investigations into his case. His lawyers say he may face new charges.

Schmidt also filed an appeal with the Basmanny court in Moscow asking that the transfer be declared illegal. The appeal and letter to Chaika were published on Khodorkovsky's Web site www.khodorkovsky.ru yesterday.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, said he was jailed and his company dismantled because he dared to challenge the power of President Vladimir Putin. Putin has denied this and said the tycoon was a common criminal.

Since 2005 Khodorkovsky had been in a prison colony in the town of Krasnokamensk, near Russia's border with China. He did menial work, slept in a dormitory and was allowed to associate with other prisoners.

Conditions in the detention centre where he was moved on Dec. 20 are more cramped. Anyone visiting him has to pass through a sequence of 19 steel doors that can be unlocked only by a guard, his lawyer said.

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