Statements of Support (2003-2013) / Lord Bates, Michael

“I had the opportunity to meet Mr Khodorkovsky in 2003 at the World Economic Forum annual meeting, where he spoke very passionately and persuasively. He was the star of the show.

I do not think there is any doubt about how this situation came about. Mr Khodorkovsky was a very rich and powerful man. In the period between the January Davos summit and his own summit in Moscow he had declared that he intended to stand down from the chief executive position at Yukos in 2007. Given that President Putin’s term was to come to an end in 2008, that was a very clear indication that Mr Khodorkovsky’s intent was to pursue political office. It would not be the first time that the lethal cocktail of oil, political ambition and extraordinary wealth led to some pretty unpleasant happenings. The mechanism by which the events happened became clear afterwards. In an article in Time magazine in January 2011, there was a very interesting interview with Igor Yurgens, who was principal adviser to President Medvedev. Igor Yurgens said: “Everyone understood [the first trial] was a case of selective justice. They all broke the law and only one was put in prison”

Lord Michael Bates, speaking during the UK’s House of Lords Debate  ‘Representations to Russia and other European countries about the Khodorkovsky case at the European Court of Human Rights’, July 23, 2013