The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect OE's position.
Detesting cruel and unusual punishment, preventing double jeopardy and imposing statutes of limitations are basic tenets of the legal systems of democracies. A judiciary independent from the government has generated such strong adherence in the modern world that even Cambodia's murderous Pol Pot, or Zimbabwe's ruthlessly cruel Robert Mugabe, the Myanmar military junta or Libya's Muammar Gaddafi have often invoked it: it was not them persecuting enemies and opposition, it was the judiciary that was handling their crimes.
None of these niceties seem to bother Russia today after 12 years of Putinocracy. There is not even a disguised attempt to spray a semblance of perfume at the obvious stench.
In late December 2010, in the week between western and Russian Christmas when ultimate cruelty can be mixed with power politics, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Russia's largest oil company Yukos, already wasting away in a Siberian prison and a few months before his ostensible release, was convicted to a further 14-year jail term. With time served he might be released in 2017. The fresh conviction was based on new embezzlement and grand theft charges which somehow were discovered well into his jail term.
Khodorkovsky, at one time Russia's richest and most successful businessman, was arrested in 2003 and sentenced in 2005 to eight years hard labor on fraud and tax evasion charges. The charges against him were considered by many - both inside and outside Russia - a sham. For starters, Yukos' alleged tax bill was larger than the entire income of the company.
The Khodorkovsky/Yukos affair more than any other show the true nature of Vladimir Putin's regime. The taking over of Yukos was called the 'swindle of the year' by none other than Putin's own economic advisor Andrei Illarionov.
Then US president George W Bush, mired then in the quagmire of Iraq, and having looked Putin 'in the eye' four years earlier, kept largely silent. The same went for most European leaders loath to bite the hand that feeds them with energy. That would of course not be the reaction in an earlier era.
Russia, shortly thereafter, went on to re-Sovietize its oil and gas industry which today is run entirely either as a state enterprise or by Kremlin cronies. In the process Russia became one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In Transparency International's latest rankings Russia comes 146th out of 180 countries, tied with Zimbabwe and below Nigeria and Uganda. Some suggested that the attack on Khodorkovsky had been motivated because of his political ambitions, others that a prominent oligarch got his just comeuppance after the wild days of the Yeltsin privatizations. The reasons are much simpler. In a KGB/FSB infested government, any move towards modernity and difference is considered as unforgivable hubris. All must beware that swift and horrible punishment is lurking. This is no different than the Stalin era and Lavrenty Beria's implementation.
This is the culture that not only brought Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, to power, but has permeated Russia for over a decade. The siloviki, former or active FSB agents, are ubiquitous and by some estimates dominate at least 60% of any positions of power. Nikolai Patrushev, head of FSB under Putin, and Putin's longtime deputy chief of staff Igor Sechin, himself a former KGB agent, are considered to be the real string pullers in Moscow today. The recent unearthing of Russian spies in the US should not surprise anybody. In the prevalent Russian frame of mind there is no mystery that agents would be placed everywhere including the US. Their presence is what counts; their actual function is secondary, a question that came up at the time of the spy revelations.
In August 2008, after a Russian court rejected Khodorkovsky's request for parole, he was supposed to be freed in 2011, following the serving of his entire sentence. But in what can only be described as sadism, rumors about new charges circulated in Moscow from the beginning of his arrest. The timing was supposed to coincide exactly before his potential release to affect maximum continuous stay in prison. With Russian justice moving at its usual snail-pace, two years before the would-be release was just about the right time for the desired outcome. The Prosecutor General's office did not disappoint, bringing the new charges in February 2009.
The indictment alleged that Khodorkovsky schemed with a group of investors at Yukos to steal 3.6 billion rubles ($102 million) from a Siberian oil company. The outrageousness of the charge, other than the obvious rationale of the sham proceedings, is that the prosecutor seems not to even know how an integrated oil company works. The alleged victim was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yukos. It is as if the headquarters of an American oil company were to be accused of taking the profits of its Texas subsidiary.
But, politics and policy aside and internal Russian shenanigans not withstanding, it is the indecency towards a man that should bring revolted feelings among all people, irrespective of nationality or ideology.
There was some tepid reaction to Khodorkovsky's conviction from Washington and some other Western capitals but the reaction was true to the tenor of today, flaccid. Understandably Russia's response was a terse 'back-off'. OE
About the Author
Michael J Economides is a professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, and editor-in-chief of the Energy Tribune. He also served as senior technical advisor to Yukos 1999-2004.