Prosecutors bully Khodorkovsky defence team-lawyer

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

MOSCOW, Feb 8 (Reuters) The lawyer of jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky complained to the Prosecutor-General's office today about what she called its acts of intimidation against the defence team.

Once Russia's richest man and an influential power broker, Khodorkovsky is serving eight years in prison on fraud and tax evasion charges he says his enemies in the Kremlin fabricated to punish him for his political ambitions.

''The recent intimidation of the defence team that takes place almost every day must be stopped,'' Karina Moskalenko said in a letter to the Prosecutor-General's office posted on the tycoon's Web site www.khodorkovsky.ru.

She described ''actions by Russia's Prosecutor-General's office aimed at intimidating the lawyers''.

In one case, the lawyers of Khodorkovsky and his jailed business associate Platon Lebedev were stopped in Moscow's Domodedovo airport on February 4. They had their tickets and passports taken away and were accompanied to a police station.

Then policemen, wearing no gloves, went through their personal belongings, including underwear, food and toiletries, citing security reasons, Moskalenko said.

Police also filmed every document and letter the lawyers were carrying before allowing them to board the plane, she said.

''I demand establishing the identity of all the officials who ... have acted illegally towards the lawyers and holding them to account,'' she said.

On Monday prosecutors charged Khodorkovsky and Lebedev with a new offence of laundering more than 20 billion dollars, which could add 10 years or more to their sentences.

Khodorkovsky, who is entitled to apply for early release from October, said the new charges were part of a Kremlin ploy to prevent him winning release and mounting a political challenge.

Russian officials deny any involvement in Khodorkovsky's prosecution. They say he is casting himself as a political dissident to cover up criminal activity that netted him billions of dollars.

Khodorkovsky was a founder of the YUKOS oil company that has now been dismantled to meet massive back tax claims.

REUTERS DKS BST0137

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