Khodorkovsky appeals Russian jail term extension

The defence of ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky yesterday appealed a court decision to extend the Kremlin critic’s jail stay until 2017 in a case watched by the West as a barometer of Russia’s democratic progress.

The challenge came as Russia stared down a barrage of international criticism of a politically-tinged trial in which the Yukos oil company founder and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev received the toughest sentence they could.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of interfering in the country’s most famous trial since the Soviet era.

“The opinions expressed there (in the West) should not and absolutely do not affect the decisions taken by the judicial authorities of the Russian Federation,” news agencies quoted Russia’s top diplomat as saying.

“They are independent of both the Russian and the foreign authorities,” Mr Lavrov stressed.

A Moscow judge found Mr Khodorkovsky and his business partner Mr Lebedev – already in prison since 2003 on tax evasion charges – guilty of money laundering and embezzlement and extended their stay in jail by six years.

The defence called the decision “lawlessness” and yesterday lodged an initial appeal.

“This is a preliminary appeal because we still do not have the official text of the sentence or the court protocol,” lawyer Karina Moskalenko said.

The case has been watched by Western governments as a test of the country’s commitment to the court independence and modernisation championed by President Dmitry Medvedev.

But disappointment echoed across international capitals following a ruling that some officials said confirmed their worst fears about Russia.

Washington had been seeking to “reset” a relationship with Moscow that suffered several dark patches during the presidency of Mr Medvedev’s strongman predecessor Vladimir Putin.

But the State Department issued an unusually frank assessment of a trial which saw now-premier Putin declare on national television during the process that a “thief must be in prison”.

“Simply put, the Russian government cannot nurture a modern economy without also developing an independent judiciary that serves as an instrument for furthering economic growth,” said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel – one of Europe’s most regular visitors to Russia – said she was “disappointed by the verdict against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his tough sentence.”

And Germany’s Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the sentence “confirmed my worst fears” about Russia.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague meanwhile called the ruling a “retrograde step for Russia” while the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton expressed “serious concern and disappointment.”