The Verdict Is In
The re-sentencing of Russia’s No.1 dissident, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, wasn’t unexpected, but the sheer brazenness of it is a striking and dangerous sign of bad things to come. There is one word that comes to mind when watching the drama surrounding the Mikhail Khodorkovsky verdict and sentence today of 13.5 years in prison. Perhaps tellingly, it is a Russian word: naglost’. English simply doesn’t have one word that packs into so few letters all that naglost’ means: arrogance, contemptuous malice, obnoxiousness, brazenness, insolence, impudence, and sheer nerve. Google Translate suggests no fewer than 22 synonyms, none of which captures the fullness of the word as well as the Russian government has embodied it in this case.
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The Khodorkovsky Verdict: Scaring Off Investment in Russia
It must have been an awkward meeting for Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. On Dec. 29, he convened a session with his economic aides to talk about attracting talented businessmen to Moscow. No one mentioned that across the river from where they were sitting, a judge was reading out the guilty verdict of one of Russia’s most successful businessmen, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose case has scared off a lot of capital from the country. But when the subject turned to Russia’s appeal for investors, Medvedev’s tone became forlorn: “The investment climate in our country is bad. It’s very bad.” And everyone understood why.
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Russia defies EU diplomacy on Khodorkovsky sentence
Experts have warned that polite diplomacy alone will have zero impact on an increasingly wayward Russia as EU leaders lined up to criticise the jailing of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Thursday.
“There’s nothing anyone can say outside of Russia that has any effect on the Russians. They just laugh as we condemn their actions,” Bill Browder, the CEO of US venture capitalist firm Hermitage Capital, whose lawyer, Sergey Magnitsky, died in suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison last year, told this website shortly after the Khodorkovsky sentence.
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Medvedev: Russia is “very poor” investment climate
President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia’s investment climate is “very bad”. In the crisis year of 2009 the flow of foreign direct investments in the Russian economy fell by almost half compared with the previous one.
“An important theme is the investment climate, these must be dealt with in the first place” – the president said, speaking Wednesday at a meeting to establish an international financial center in Moscow.
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Khodorkovsky verdict sheds light on justice system
Russians begin to take notice as oil tycoon is again found guilty. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed oil tycoon turned liberal martyr, was found guilty today of a second set of charges in a trial held up as a symbol of Russia’s compromised justice system.
The guilty verdict was widely expected but nonetheless provoked harsh condemnation from Russia’s marginalized opposition, international observers and Khodorkovsky’s family.
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“A thief should sit in jail…”
The conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oil tycoon, is a sobering reminder that the Russia of Vladimir Putin is surely a throwback to the bad old days of the totalitarian state. Mr Khodorkovsky has already spent the past seven years in prison for tax evasion and money-laundering; after the new trial (a travesty of justice that has led to public criticism from Hillary Clinton and the EU) more years in prison seem inevitable—enough to keep him in custody well after Russia’s next presidential election, due in 2012.
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Magnitsky Investigator handed case of embezzlement from “Transneft”
GZT.ru
(This translation was carried out using Google Translate software.)
The case of misuse of funds during the construction of the ESPO oil pipeline was recently transferred to Investigator Oleg Sil’chenko who conducted the case into Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. About it ” Statements” Said the chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee Kirill Kabanov.
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Fatal odyssey of a Russian prisoner tells a dark tale; Above the law
International Herald Tribune
More than a year ago the members of an obscure oversight panel filed into Butyrskaya Prison to look into the death of a prisoner. They were hardly an intimidating bunch: mostly retired women, scribbling their observations in notebooks, regarded by the prison staff as a minor irritant, like fleas.
In a country whose law enforcement wields enormous power, it is easy enough to ignore civilian watchdog groups. But this day was different. When the doctors were led in and told to take a seat, the panel’s leader, a veteran human rights activist named Valery V. Borshchev, felt something unfamiliar in the air.
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Russia acknowledges it has an image problem
Russia has an image problem due to cases such as the death in jail of a whistleblower and the trials of an ex-tycoon, a senior official has said.
But the president’s chief economic adviser added that Russia was working hard to improve the investment climate. “We are doing our best to punish those people who are not following the rule of law,” said Arkady Dvorkovich.
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
