- Marc Ginsberg
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kremlin vengeance knows no limits when it comes to the miscarriage of justice committed by Russian authorities against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his fellow imprisoned business partner, Platon Lebedev.
Both men now face the prospect of a second kangaroo-style proceeding designed to keep them in the Siberian gulag indefinitely despite having become eligible for parole under Russian law. A hearing to determine the date of the new trial is scheduled for March 3rd.
When then President Vladimir Putin embarked in 2003 upon his audacious plot to nationalize Russia’s private energy companies, Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil Company became target #1.
Why? At the time of his arrest in October, 2003, Khodorkovsky was the most successful, wealthiest and pro-U.S. of the so-called Russian “oligarchs,” having transformed Yukos into the most efficient, profitable and transparent oil company in Russia.
Khodorkovsky was determined to change the way Russia did business with the west. He developed strong strategic business and philanthropic ties to major U.S. companies and organizations, including the Carlyle Group, Schlumberger, the Carnegie Endowment, the Library of Congress and Oxford University.
Khodorkovsky had also created his own Russian philanthropic foundation — Open Russia — which was supporting a wide variety of civil society programs in Russia. Yukos Oil was fast becoming the model corporate citizen leading Russia into a new era of partnership with the U.S.
But Putin considered Khodorkovsky a threat to his own power, and was determined to eliminate him.
In their first Kremlin-instigated trial, allegedly for tax evasion and other financial crimes, the harsh verdicts handed down against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were widely disparaged by international human rights organizations as politically-motivated convictions based on political instructions from the Kremlin.
Not one shred of evidence was introduced by the prosecution to prove that either Khodorkovsky or Lebedev committed the crimes alleged, and their trial was replete with violations of due process and subject to intense international criticism from impartial human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Freedom House.
Since their imprisonment, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have been denied adequate medical attention, been the subject of physical assault by guards, and after having served over half their sentences, been denied parole despite having fulfilled the requirements of parole under Russian law.
A few weeks ago, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office finalized new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.
The charges are so ludicrous on their face that the Kremlin was forced to remove the original prosecutors who drew up the charges to work on yet another contrived set of charges — neither of which can pass any smell test of rudimentary justice.
To appease Putin’s orders, Russian authorities are utilizing a range of extra-judicial and unethical tactics, including blackmail, and the intimidation of others to manipulate “evidence” to convict the two again.
During his presidential campaign, President Obama stated that the degree and manner which Russia respects human rights and the rule of law will necessarily impact the future of U.S. – Russian relations.
Should Russian authorities proceed to file new charges against Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, there is no doubt in my mind that it is time for the United States to send a strong signal that the reset button will not be pushed — as Vice President Biden recently proposed — until the Kremlin desists from a second trial and frees Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.
The case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev is all too illustrative of the decay of democracy, due process, the rule of law and human rights that has occurred in Putin’s Russia. Soviet-style autocratic injustice once again is on display, and the cause of human rights and democracy compel a strong voice against it by our new president.
Marc Ginsberg was the U.S. ambassador to Morocco during the Clinton Administration, making him the first American of Jewish heritage to be appointed chief diplomat to an Arab nation. 
