On May 7th, 2008 - one year ago today - Dmitry Medvedev assumed the office of the Presidency of Russian Federation. Luke Harding at the Guardian reviews his first year in office, stopping by the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky:
Earlier last month, while pondering Medvevev's anniversary, and whether we should believe anything he says, I dropped into the trial in Moscow of the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky, the ex-CEO of the oil company Yukos, is in court again, this time charged with embezzlement and money laundering. Khodorkovsky, together with his business partner Platon Lebedev, was sitting inside a glass cage; he cut a composed if etiolated figure. Seven burly guards armed with pistols and Kalashnikovs stood inside the courtroom - presumably in the unlikely event that Khodorkovsky tried to escape.
Khodorkovksy's parents sat in the front row. Just before the session started, a guard came up to Khodorkovsky's elderly father and took away his chair.
Even the most neutral observers have come to the conclusion that this latest Khodorkovsky trial is a nothing more than an act of political vindictiveness - designed to keep Khodorkovksy in prison when his current eight-year sentence is up. The trial is trundling towards its pre-scripted conclusion, even though this latest case against him is embarrassingly feeble and contradictory. Everyone in Moscow is aware that Khodorkovsky's real crime is to have challenged Putin. His mistake was to break the unwritten covenant that Russian businessmen - especially rich ones - should stay out of politics.
Which begs the question, why has Medevedev allowed the trial to go ahead? If, as he suggests, he believes in a judiciary free from political influence, then the Khodorkovksy trial is a blatant abuse of process. At a time when Russia is mired in economic crisis and desperate for foreign investment, the case is clearly not helping Russia's international image - indeed Russia needs it like a hole in the head. Quizzed about this last week, a Medvedev aide merely repeated what the president had said about independent courts - a less-than-convincing explanation as to why the Kremlin has decided to stage another dreary post-modern show trial.
