The legal and psychological drama of the ex-Yukos owners’ dilemma

This seems a logical conclusion as star witnesses, including both past and current top government officials, had denied any knowledge of specific wrongdoings by the accused under their watch. To bring the new charges into perspectives, it needs to be restated here that both currently stand accused of pilfering 350mln tons of oil from the nation’s oil transportation network, or about 20% percent of the country's annual oil output at that time. According to the prosecution, these actions amounted to a gross theft of 900bln rubles (about $30bln).  

Convincing evidences from high-profile witnesses 

These recent events are making it very difficult for the unbiased observers not to agree with the defense team’s assertion that it is totally impossible to commit such ‘economic crimes of such financial magnitudes’ in absolute secrecy in a country like Russia. Besides, this position has been strengthened further by the few high-profile witnesses that had so far testified in the cases. 

One of the witnesses was German Gref, the former Russian economics minister from 2000 to 2007 and now Sberbank CEO, who explicitly stated on record in a Moscow court on June 21 that he would ‘have been aware of such oil theft by Yukos if it had actually occurred as charged by the state. Needless to say that he, however, watered down this unequivocal stance by noting that his core official duties did not include direct control over oil transportation issues. However, on the charges of dual pricing policy, whereby the defenders allegedly illegally bought oil from Yukos subsidiaries at lower prices than those on the global market, thus pocketing $30bln in the deals, Gref, again, was unequivocal, as he noted that there was nothing ‘legally wrong with the action, a widely used practice in the industry at the time.’ 

Similarly, another high-ranking witness, Viktor Khristenko, the nation’s current industry and trade minister, who served from 1999 to 2008 as Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector, also denied any knowledge of the multibillion oil-and-cash theft. The other star witnesses such as ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who is now in firm opposition to the government, had called the cases ‘politically motivated charges,’ while Viktor Gerashchenko, the ex-Russian Central Bank chairman, who oversaw the final demise of Yukos via a government-orchestrated bankruptcy procedure, was more blunt in his assessment of the cases, calling them ‘trump up and utter crap.’ 

“The search for the answer to the issue of the duo’s guilt or innocence is not being helped by the court’s unwillingness to subpoena more informed witnesses that ought to really know the real circumstances surrounding the old and new charges against the accused.”

These new revelations have only compounded the legal and psychological drama of the Yukos case dilemma. Previously, it was easy to classify the charges against the duo into purely political, economic, criminal and or personal vendetta issues, with the choice of the real cliches depending on whom one asks and his/her personal relations to the cases and the accused. Thus, for those supporting the ex-oil barons, notably, family members and close business partners, the duo are, undoubtedly, victims of politically instigated vendetta. On the other hand, those against them, notably, the prosecutors, victims and relatives of those killed or bodily harmed in crimes allegedly masterminded by the duo and their stooges are equally convinced that justice had taken place, though belatedly, with the guilty verdict convictions in the first charges. To them, the new charges that carry a combined jail term of 22.5 years each are further hard evidences of the unprecedented scales of crimes committed by the accused.

Another unique chance for court to proof its absolute independence

The issue of the duo’s guilt or innocence is not being helped by the court’s unwillingness to subpoena other key witnesses, such as the top government officials in charge of regulating the oil industry and taxes and revenues collection agency at the time of committing the alleged crimes, as well as the heads of the anti-economic crimes units of the nation’s numerous law-enforcement agencies (MVD, FSB, General Prosecutor’s Office, etc.) and really query them on how they managed to overlook such outrageous crimes that really posed palpable threat to the nation’s economic security till the now famous direct confrontation between Vladimir Putin and Khodorkovsky in a Kremlin meeting in 2003. Needless to say that it was after this altercation that the duo landed behind bars.

Now, the onus is again on the Russian court to use the second round of charges against the duo as a unique opportunity to prove to Russians, and indeed, the global community, that justice is ‘really absolutely blind’ in Russia, which is never meted out to gratify anybody, but on the contrary, also carried out objectively, without fear or favor, and regardless of political identity, social status or economic might of those involved in the case. The most worrying trend in the cases is the fact that the Russian judiciary system has so far conspicuously failed to prove, beyond all reasonable doubts, its unalloyed commitment to this aged legal concept in Yukos cases.