Russian Oil Magnate Fears Taint of Further Charges

The imprisoned billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky may soon face a battery of further charges brought by Russian prosecuting authorities trying to fend off a growing international campaign to free him, his chief defence lawyer said yesterday.

Robert Amsterdam told the Guardian: "We are deeply concerned that even as we speak there is a possibility that further charges based on the flimsiest of evidence may be concocted because there is a political necessity to taint the man."

He feared his client had become "too sympathetic" a victim since his arrest on fraud and tax evasion charges on October 25 and the freezing of a large part of shares in his oil company, Yukos.

"Mr Khodorkovsky himself feared that once they put him in jail they would do whatever was necessary to keep him there, realising that the world community would wake up to the fact that there was absolutely no legal justification for putting him there, and that they would have to find a way to further taint his reputation," Mr Amsterdam said.

Mr Khodorkovsky will be in court on Tuesday when his Russian lawyers will plead for his release.

Yesterday the affair caused an embarrassing rift between the Italian prime minister and the Italian president of the European commission.

Romano Prodi, the commission president, denounced a comment by the quixotic Silvio Berlusconi that he was prepared to act as Mr Putin's defence lawyer on both the Yukos case and the war in Chechnya.

Mr Berlusconi, who as holder of the rotating EU presidency received Mr Putin for his summit meeting with the EU in Rome on Thursday, said: "I know President Putin well enough that I can personally vouch for his precise understanding of the distinction, the separation between the executive and judicial powers. I'm acting as President Putin's defence lawyer here, even though he hasn't asked me to."

In a rare public rebuke, Mr Prodi's official spokesman, Reijo Kemppinen, said: "We do not share the view of prime minister Berlusconi when it comes to the situation of Yukos, nor when it comes to the present... or past situation in Chechnya."

He said Mr Prodi had told Mr Putin at the summit in that Mr Khodorkovsky's arrest and the state seizure of shares in the private energy company raised concern about the security of foreign investment in Russia.

Last week the US state department voiced its concern about the arrest and Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyers are conducting an international campaign to keep the case in the forefront of the EU's attention. They have compiled a 25-page dossier detailing the violations of the Russian constitution and due process in the case.

It includes an allegation that one of Mr Khodorkovsky's two jailed associates, Alexei Pichugin, was tortured with psychotropic drugs in an effort to gain a confession which could be used against their client.