Zee Beam News

06-06-2005 RBC News - The trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former chief executive of oil company YUKOS, and his partner, head of Menatep Group Platon Lebedev, was not the last case against oligarchs in Russia, Vladimir Kolesnikov, deputy prosecutor general of Russia, told the Sunday Evening program on NTV. "We have more cases in store. This case is not the last," Kolesnikov warned. Asked why other oligarchs were still at large, he said: "Unfortunately, some of them fled. We were too humane, and they managed to escape." He said new legal proceedings would be initiated shortly, similar to the case against YUKOS security chief Alexei Pichugin, convicted of organizing several contract killings. Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-President of the Soviet Union, in this weekend's interview with the British Sunday Times, expressed surprise that Khodorkovsky was seen as a hero in the West. If Khodorkovsky, with his gift to evade taxes, had operated in the United States, he would have been jailed long ago, Gorbachev remarked. According to some estimates, Russian businessmen had evaded about $1 trillion in tax, the former president added.