PUTIN AGAIN PURSUES PROSECUTION OF POLITICAL OPPONENT
12 July 2005
Yesterday, the government of the Russian Federation announced it was planning to investigate former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on fraud charges related to real estate purchases. Kasyanov, target of the investigation, has been said to be one of the figures likely to lead the liberal opposition to Putin in the next election.
In October 2003, Putin's government arrested Mikhail Khodorkovski, Russia's wealthiest man, the majority shareholder in oil giant Yukos, and a main political rival to Putin. He was jailed and has been convicted of tax evasion. Yukos was eventually seized by the Russian government and sold to a nebulous group of investors, apparently formed for the sole reason of buying off the extensive assets of the embattled company.
Yukos had been reported by the New York Times, in 1999, to be responsible for extensive fraud and money laundering, and Khodorkovski is one of Russia's too-powerful and much-feared Oligarchs who had capitalized magnificently on the rush to privatization of Soviet assets in the 1990s, but he was also Putin's rival, and that is where the current case meets his.
Kasyanov has been critical of Putin's methods and politics and could stand as the main opposition candidate in the next presidential elections.
