Former Russian PM blasts trial against tycoon

By GARY PEACH Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW (AP) - A former Russian prime minister turned fierce Kremlin critic came to the defense of an imprisoned tycoon on Monday, telling a Moscow court that prosecutors' new charges of massive crude oil embezzlement are absurd.

Mikhail Kasyanov, who headed the government in 2000-2004, told the court that the accusations against Mikhail Khodorkovksy, a former billionaire now serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian prison, had no basis in reality.

Prosecutors claim that Khodorkovsky, along with business partner Platon Lebedev, who is also in prison, embezzled some 350 million tons - or $25 billion worth - of crude oil while they headed the Yukos oil company.

"That's all the oil Yukos produced over six years from 1998 to 2003," Kasyanov told The Associated Press in a phone interview after giving testimony. "I consider the accusation absurd."

He said that, while prime minister, he received regular reports about Russia's oil companies and that Yukos consistently paid its taxes - and in fact was the largest taxpayer in the country.

Kasyanov, who served as prime minister during most of Vladimir Putin's first presidential term, said both the current trial and the previous one, which ended with a 2005 conviction of Khodorkovsky on fraud and tax evasion - were politically motivated.

He said in 2003 he personally approached Putin about the case against Khodorkovsky, who at the time was considered to be Russia's most influential tycoon.

"He told me that Khodorkovsky was being investigated because he had made unsanctioned donations to political parties," Kasyanov said. "So after hearing that, I came to the conclusion that the case was entirely political."

Factoring in time served after his October 2003 arrest, Khodorkovsky is due to be released next year. The former tycoon has argued that the new charges, which carry a sentence of up to 22 years, are a ploy to keep him behind bars since the Kremlin fears his influence.

Kasyanov, who has fallen out with the Kremlin and is now a leading opposition figure, said he isn't sanguine about Khodorkovsky's legal prospects.

"I'd like to believe that common sense would prevail and the court would acquit (Khodorkovsky), but we don't have an independent judiciary," he said. "Unfortunately, that's the reality in contemporary Russia."