EDITORIAL
Warrior Khodorkovsky slashes Putin yet Again
At the second trial of dissident oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky last week, not one but two major figures in the Putin government heaped scorn on the ludicrious charge that Khodorkovsky personally embezzled millions of tons of crude oil from his company while he was a free man.
First German Gref, the CEO of state-owned Sberbank, the largest financial institution in the country, and then Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko, a high-ranking cabinet official, stated that there were no reports of large volumes of oil going missing while Khodorkovsky was running his YUKOS oil concern. The prosecutor, who had called them as witnesses in support of the Kremlin’s case, was humiliated, and the proceedings degenerated into farce:
Prosecutor Valery Lakhtin tried to pose his own questions for Khristenko, but many were rejected by the judge to the evident irritation of Lakhtin, who left the courtroom several times during the three-hour hearing. Khodorkovsky interrupted Lakhtin several times, exclaiming at one point: “The prosecutor is lying!”
“The prosecutor can’t lie!” Lakhtin fired back, provoking laughter and applause among people in the courtroom.
That’s right, Mr. Putin: They’re laughing at you. And Mr. Khodorkovsky is grinning from ear to ear.
We’ve previously reported on how Khodorkovsky has been winning victory after victory against Putin, even from behind bars. First he published a devastating newspaper article calling for revolution against Putin, then he launched a massive legal assault in the European Court for Human Rights, which recently saw Russia begging for competent legal representation in the most pathetic manner imaginable.
And now, in the very courtroom where he is being persecuted, Khodorkovsky is laughing as Putin’s prosecutor collapses for all the world to see.
La Russophobe 
Maybe the politically motivated intent here is not to keep Khodorkovsky in jail, but instead have him cleared of all the trumped-up charges, thus demonstrating the ‘effectiveness’ of the Russian judicial system?
The only problem with that logic is that this exact same thing happened at the first trial, and he still got sent to prison in Siberia.
You’re probably right LR, I tend to underestimate the Russian Government’s ability to make make themselves look bad!
It is just preposterous to accuse Russian oligarchs of breaking laws. Everybody knows that you didn’t have to break any laws to get hold of oil companies worth $tens of billions of dollars, previously belonging to the people of Russia. All you had to do was become friends with Yeltsin’s daughters and bribe your way into ownership of oil companies.
You mean become friends with Yeltsin the way Putin did, so he could receive repeated promotions and ultimately the presidency?
Putin never became close friends with Yeltsin himself. He became the puppet of Berezovsky. Berezovsky and Litvinenko staged a fake conference that installed Putin as the Head of FSB. Later, Berezovsky convinced Yeltsin that Putin would be the best replacement to Yeltsin because he would not prosecute Yeltsin’s family and the oligarchs for their economic crimes.
Boy were they in for a surprise!
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
So you’re saying, you braying JACKASS, that Putin prosecuted Yeltsin?? Gosh, we must have slept through that one. It’s amazing how we missed that one! Shame on us! And Berezovsky’s in jail too, huh? Gosh, what a man that Putin is!
And while Yeltsin is a maniac, he had ABSOLUTELY NO INFLUENCE on Putin at all, who is as pure as the driven snow??
Do tell!
“The prosecutor, who had called them as witnesses in support of the Kremlin’s case”
Actually most of the requested witness list were not required to testify including Putin.
http://mn.ru/politics/20100519/187828812.html
“he launched a massive legal assault in the European Court for Human Rights”
Which might get him killed sooner rather than later.
“First he published a devastating newspaper article calling for revolution against Putin”
Likely to be seen as a willful act of sedition by the Russian public. The truth about Kordorkovsky as stated by Dugin from the russian perspective:
Hillary Clinton should clean-up the corruption in her own country and that oily mess before interfering in the affairs of other nations with the application of hypocracy and double standards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22detroit.html?ref=geoffrey_fieger
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E4DE1231F931A35751C1A9639C8B63