Russia's top court orders release of Khodorkovsky partner

Google – AFP, 23 January 2014

Picture taken on December 27, 2010 shows oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky (L)

 and his former business partner Platon Lebedev (R) behind a glass wall in a

Moscow court (AFP/File, Alexander Nemenov)

Moscow — Russia's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the immediate release of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's jailed business partner, Platon Lebedev, whose term was due to end in May.

However, the court effectively sealed the exile of Khodorkovsky, who was released last month after receiving a pardon from President Vladimir Putin, by upholding the state's $550 million (400 million euro) tax claim against him.

The former chief of the Yukos oil firm, who left Russia immediately after his release, has said he will not be able to return as long as the tax claim remains in place.

Russia's top court "changed the (lower) court's decision," court spokesman Pavel Odintsov told AFP.

A photo taken on December 22, 2013 in

 Berlin shows Mikhail Khodorkovsky giving a

press conference (AFP/File, Clemens Bilan)

"Lebedev is to be released," he added, in a ruling that comes as the Kremlin prepares to host the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi next month.

"The main thing today is the release of Platon Lebedev," Khodorkovsky's defence team said in a statement.

"However there is bad news as well. The Presidium of the Supreme Court has not overruled the absurd claims over 17.5 billion rubles ($550 million)."

The claim will prevent Khodorkovsky, who left Russia as soon as he was released from jail, from returning to his home country, the statement said.

"As long as the claim stands, the 'iron curtain' can drop in front of him any time. And he cannot afford the luxury of losing his freedom of movement because of his health, family situation and strategic life plans."

Khodorkovsky, who is currently in Switzerland with his wife and children, will "certainly not" return to Russia after the decision, his spokeswoman Olga Pispanen further told AFP.

"He cannot be locked inside one country now due to family circumstances and the health of Maria Filippovna," she said, referring to the tycoon's mother, who has undergone treatment for cancer in Berlin.

In a move that stunned Russia, Putin last month pardoned Khodorkovsky on humanitarian grounds and the tycoon was immediately flown out of the country.

The cloak-and-dagger operation was quietly agreed between the Kremlin and German diplomats including former foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

Lebedev was arrested in July 2003. He was Khodorkovsky's co-defendant in the two highly controversial trials which saw both convicted on charges of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering.

Khodorkovsky has said that the decision to imprison and then release him was taken personally by Putin, although he said in December that he did not hold a grudge against the president because his family was spared.

The European Court of Human Rights had said that the trials were unfair, but did not call them politically motivated.

President Vladimir Putin gives an 

interview to Russian and foreign

journalists in Sochi on January 19,

 2014 (Ria Novosti Pool/AFP/File,

Aleksey Nikolskyi)

Lebedev has been serving his sentence in the far-northern Arkhangelsk region. His defence repeatedly complained that he has been denied adequate medical care for his health problems.

The 57-year-old will leave the prison as soon as its administration receives the court decision, the prison service told Russian news agencies.

Observers have attributed the surprise release of Putin's top critic Khodorkovsky to Kremlin attempts to improve Russia's international image ahead of the Olympic Games that begin in Sochi on February 7.

Political analyst Mikhail Remizov said the decision to free Lebedev was the logical next step.

But although Khodorkovsky has denied plans to enter politics, Putin is still wary of letting him back into the country, he said.

"The Kremlin does not know what to expect of him as a public figure," Remizov said. "The Kremlin prefers some geographical distance from Khodorkovsky."