Statements of Support (2003-2013) / Llosa, Mario Vargas

“The punishments and the abuses of justice of which the former owner of Yukos has been victim to have nothing to do with the economic offences that he could have committed in his business activities, which for a time made him Russia’s most wealthy man, but rather have to do with the support he gave to democratic institutions and parties, to human rights organisations, and his attempts to introduce in his businesses Western-style methods of openness and transparency, and, above all, his aspiration – chimerical given the situation of the country – to participate in Russian politics as a critic and opponent of the new tsar, Vladimir Putin”

Mario Vargas Llosa, novelist and Nobel laureate, February 2008