Khodorkovsky Predicts Revolt Against ‘System’
Mikhail Khodorkovsky has launched an attack on Russia's criminal justice system, predicting a bloody revolt if its excesses were not curtailed.
In Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Khodorkovsky wrote: "The trigger for this explosion could be anything." He added: "Either this criminal system will be destroyed...which would take willpower and decisive action by the country's top political leaders; or its destruction will occur the traditional Russian way: from below, with bloodshed."
Khodorkovsky described Russia's police, prosecutors, judges and prisons as cogs in a giant system that ignored the rights of the accused and was often used to steal property from businessmen.
He wrote: "Until you've found yourself in the paws of the System, you know nothing about it. The System is essentially a united enterprise whose business is legalized violence."
Khodorkovsky's supporters say he was jailed for financing political opposition parties and not falling in line with the policies of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was Russia's president when Khodorkovsky was convicted in 2005.
His article was published one day before the European Court of Human Rights is due to hear a 98-billion-dollar complaint filed by YUKOS against the Russian government.