Britain and the United States led international condemnation on Monday after the Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were found guilty of theft and money laundering by a court in Moscow.
The British Foreign Office said the conviction could threaten trade relations between the countries, and Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said it raised “serious questions about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations”.
Supporters of the two men say the trial is a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign designed as vengeance against Khodorkovsky — once Russia’s richest man — for supporting opposition politicians.
“This and similar cases have a negative impact on Russia’s reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations and improving its investment climate,” Clinton said, in comments that are likely to anger Moscow. “We welcome President [Dmitry] Medvedev’s modernisation plans, but their fulfilment requires the development of a climate where due process and judicial independence are respected,” she added.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said the UK had been watching the trial closely and would continue to raise concerns with Moscow that the law “should be applied in a non-discriminatory and proportional way”. She said this was essential to sustain an environment “in which investors can remain confident that they can do business, and that property and other rights are soundly protected”.
Earlier Richard Ottaway, the chairperson of the foreign affairs select committee, said the case could damage Anglo-Russian business ties. “I think we have got to make the point pretty forcefully that if they expect a good trading relationship between the two countries, we want to see a rule of law and a commercial code that we can all understand and follow,” he told BBC Radio 4.
‘Trumped up charges’
Chris Bryant, the former minister for Europe and chairperson of the parliamentary all-party Russia group, said in a statement: “Having visited the trial and seen for myself the farcical way in which it was being conducted, with ludicrous trumped up charges and a petulant martinet of a prosecutor, it is entirely predictable that [Khodorkovsky] has been found guilty.”
He added: “This is not fair, open and transparent justice. It is the pursuit of a political agenda via a pretend judicial process.”
The conviction also draw drew fire from across Europe.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, said she was following the verdict “very closely” and “expects Russia to respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law”.
Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, called the verdict “highly alarming and a step backwards for the country on its road towards modernisation”.
Viktor Danilkin, the trial judge, spent the whole day reading part of his 250-page verdict and will resume the process tomorrow, but he made clear in his early remarks that the two men had been found guilty.
Sentencing will be announced after he finishes and could see the pair – already jailed in a previous trial on fraud and tax evasion charges – behind bars until 2017. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev’s lawyers have said they will appeal. – guardian.co.uk