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Khodorkovsky's Release: Why Now and What Next?

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Khodorkovsky's Release: Why Now and What Next? Russia and Eurasia PP 2014/01 Khodorkovsky’s Release: Why Now and What Next? Richard Sakwa University of Kent January 2014 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/ speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions, but the ultimate responsibility for accuracy lies with this document’s author(s). The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. Khodorkovsky’s Release: Why Now and What Next? INTRODUCTION Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s sudden release from a correctional colony in Karelia after ten years of imprisonment on 20 December 2013 raises a whole series of questions. First, why was he released at this time? After all, his sentence was due to end in August 2014. Second, what were the conditions attached to his release? Was some sort of deal made with President Vladimir Putin in which Khodorkovsky was given his freedom in exchange for a promise to keep out of politics and to soft-pedal the claims of shareholders in Yukos, the oil company he headed before his arrest? Third, what would Khodorkovsky do now? Would he go into business, or engage in public life in some capacity. Would he become the symbolic, and possibly the practical, leader of the Russian opposition? Finally, while in jail Khodorkovsky had become one of the most perceptive analysts of contemporary Russia. Now that he was free to speak without prison censorship, what would be his analysis of Russian politics? Khodorkovsky was arrested on 25 October 2003. 1 This was accompanied by an attack on Yukos, which under his leadership had been transformed from a ramshackle conglomeration of Soviet oil production, refining and distribution units into a vertically integrated company that had become Russia’s second larger producer. If plans to merge with Sibneft had been completed, it would have become the biggest. Instead, Yukos was bankrupted by a series of increasingly punitive tax demands, with the bulk of its assets going to Rosneft, which thereby began its ascent to becoming the world’s largest oil company. In May 2005 Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in jail (reduced to eight on appeal), and in December 2010 he and his leading colleague, Platon Lebedev, were given another long sentence, to be served concurrently with the first, that would have seen them in jail until early 2017. In December 2012 the Moscow City Court reduced their sentences by two years, and on 6 August 2013 the Supreme Court cut them by a further two months, bringing forward their anticipated release to 23 August and 2 May 2014, respectively. However, on 19 December 2013 Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky, and the following day he was released and flew to Berlin. 1 For a full discussion, see Richard Sakwa, Putin and the Oligarch: The Khodorkovsky–Yukos Affair (London & New York: I. B. Tauris, forthcoming 2014), from which this account draws. www.chathamhouse.org 2 Khodorkovsky’s Release: Why Now and What Next? WHY NOW? Khodorkovsky’s release took place at a time of intense speculation that a third case against him would soon be launched. In early December it was revealed that, only two weeks after Khodorkovsky and Lebedev had been sentenced for the second time in early 2011, evidence began to be collected for a third case, and the investigations had intensified from February 2013 with new searches and interviews.2 On 6 December the deputy prosecutor general, Alexander Zvyagintsev, raised the prospect of new criminal charges. A third trial appeared imminent, focusing on an episode related to the main case launched in 2003 regarding the alleged laundering of $10 billion outside Russia. There were fears that Khodorkovsky could also be accused of sponsoring experts and scholars to promote ‘liberalization of the criminal law in 2008–11’ with money obtained from selling oil embezzled from Yukos subsidiaries.3 During his four-hour press conference on 19 December, however, President Putin noted: ‘As to the third case, I do not want to go into details but honestly speaking I, as a person watching this from the outside, do not see great prospects for this.’ Barely an hour later, after the formal press conference had ended, when asked again about Khodorkovsky, Putin unexpectedly announced that he would ‘in the nearest future’ pardon him. Asked about the various amnesties, including the one announced the previous day that would see Greenpeace activists and others freed, the president said: As for Khodorkovsky, you know that I have already spoken of this. Mikhail Borisovich should in line with the law have written the necessary document, which he did not do, but just recently he did write this document and addressed me with an appeal for clemency. He has already spent 10 years in jail, which is a serious punishment. He bases his appeal on humanitarian grounds – his mother is ill. I think that taking into account all these circumstances, we can take the appropriate decision and in the nearest future a decree on his pardon will be signed.4 2 ‘Evidence collection for third Yukos case started directly after 2nd conviction – source’, Interfax, 18 December 2013. 3 ‘Russia mulls new case against Khodorkovsky – paper’, RIA Novosti, 9 December 2013. http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131209/185392877/Russia-Mulls-New-Case-Against-Khodorkovsky-- Paper.html. 4 ‘Press-konferentsiya Vladimira Putina’ [Vladimir Putin’s Press Conference], 19 December 2013, http://kremlin.ru/news/19859. www.chathamhouse.org 3 Khodorkovsky’s Release: Why Now and What Next? Putin signed the pardon shortly afterwards, and already at 2.30 am on 20 December Khodorkovsky was woken in his prison cell in the Segezha camp in Karelia and driven to Petrozavodsk. A short flight took him to Pulkovo airport in St Petersburg and a chartered German plane then flew him to Berlin. In his first statement that evening with the New Times, the Russian magazine that had published his sketches of prison life, Khodorkovsky said: After 10 years, I now have an unbelievable feeling of freedom. I am grateful to you and to everyone who supported me all this time […] I love everyone, I am happy. The most important thing now is freedom, freedom, freedom.5 Khodorkovsky said that on 12 November 2013 he had written to the president for a pardon ‘due to my family situation, and I am glad that his decision was positive’. He stressed that ‘The issue of admission of guilt was not raised’. It soon became known that he had written another letter to Putin stating that he had no current intention of entering politics and that he would not fight for the return of Yukos assets expropriated by the Kremlin.6 His statement gave special thanks to Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former German foreign minister, for ‘his personal participation in my fate’, and looked forward to celebrating the holidays with his family.7 Putin’s pardon indicated his confidence that Khodorkovsky no longer represented a threat. The protest movement provoked by Putin’s return to power had fizzled out, accompanied by some political reforms that would not change the tutelary powers of the regime but allowed a mild degree of greater pluralism and electoral competitiveness. The model of state–business relations in operation since the Yukos affair, with business largely absent from open politics, was still operating satisfactorily from the regime’s perspective. With the Sochi Winter Olympics due to start on 7 February, the amnesty for most political prisoners and Khodorkovsky’s release removed some of the major human rights issues poisoning relations with the West. The release, however, comes too late to make much of a difference to which political leaders will be attending the opening ceremony. Russian economic performance, moreover, is deteriorating, with only 1.4 per cent growth registered in 2013. Nevertheless, the manner in which Putin made the announcement suggested that there remained powerful forces in the regime 5 Shaun Walker and Philip Oltermann, ‘Mikhail Khodorkovsky “exhausted but happy to be free” after Putin’s pardon’, The Guardian, 20 December 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/20/mikhail-khodorkovsky-free-putin-pardon-berlin. 6 ‘Mikhail Khodorkovsky: in from the cold’, Economist.com, 23 December 2013. 7 ‘Khodorkovsky’s first message in freedom’, 20 December 2013, http://www.khodorkovsky.com/featured-articles/khodorkovskys-first-message-in-freedom/. www.chathamhouse.org 4 Khodorkovsky’s Release: Why Now and What Next? opposed to Khodorkovsky’s release. A pardon, unlike an amnesty, does not require the State Duma’s approval but is a presidential prerogative. In his first major interview, with the New Times, on 21 December in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, Khodorkovsky speculated that his departure for Berlin, in connection with his mother’s illness, made Putin’s decision rather easier. He said there had been no deal of any sort, that he did not consider himself in exile and wished to return to Moscow, but only on condition that he would be able to leave again. He insisted that the Yukos affair could not be over until the last of the Yukos prisoners was free.
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