MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) – Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been in prison for almost a decade, marked his 50th birthday Wednesday with a visit from his family, as a new survey showed that one-third of Russians are in favor of his immediate release.
Khodorkovsky was arrested on the runway of a Siberian airport in 2003 on charges his supporters claim were politically motivated, and is currently incarcerated in a prison colony in Segezha, a village in the northern Russian region of Karelia, 900 kilometers (540 miles) from Moscow.
Public support for the former billionaire appears to be on the rise, according to a poll from the independent Levada Center published Wednesday to coincide with his birthday. The poll showed that 33 percent of respondents support Khodorkovsky’s immediate release, compared with 19 percent six years ago.
The number of people who see Khodorkovsky’s conviction as political also appears to be increasing, with 47 percent of respondents – compared with 27 percent in 2010 – saying they believe that Khodorkovsky remains in jail either because of his political beliefs or because his release could threaten those who seized his oil company, Yukos. Most of Yukos’ assets now belong to state-owned oil giant Rosneft, which is run by Kremlin heavyweight Igor Sechin.
Several small protests were held across Russia in a show of support for Khodorkovsky on Wednesday. A few hundred people attended an evening rally in central Moscow, the BBC Russian Service reported, and over 40 people were later detained by police. About 40 people turned up earlier in the day to a similar rally in the Siberian city of Tomsk.
Khodorkovsky was allowed a visit from his family on his birthday for the first time since he was jailed, said his lawyer, Vadim Kluvgant. And Khodorkovsky also received birthday wishes and tributes from his supporters.
“For many people over the years, Khodorkovsky has become a symbol of qualities that are in catastrophic deficit in today’s Russia: dignity and courage,” Russian author Boris Akunin wrote on his blog Wednesday. “Russia is very lucky that in 2003 Khodorkovsky did not leave – or shoot himself.”
In an interview published Monday in The New Times, Khodorkovsky said he “would have shot himself” in 2003 if he had known the fate that awaited him.
Although Khodorkovsky has now seen nine birthdays go past from behind bars, the so-called Yukos affair is still generating new twists and turns.
State-controlled television channel NTV broadcast a documentary Monday alleging that the founders of Yukos, including Khodorkovsky, masterminded the killing of the mayor of Siberian town Nefteyugansk in 1998.
And several experts have recently been questioned by Russia’s Investigative Committee over their role in a 2011 report that was heavily critical of the legal basis for Khodorkovsky’s sentencing in the second case against Yukos. Mikhail Subbotin, a Higher School of Economics professor, was questioned Wednesday, and Tamara Morshchakova, the former Constitution Court judge who commissioned the report for the Kremlin's Human Rights Council, has been summoned for questioning Thursday. Sergei Guriev, a prominent economist, fled Russia last month fearing that he could be arrested for his role in the report.
Before his arrest, Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man and used his position to accuse President Vladimir Putin’s government of rampant corruption while lavishly funding opposition parties. He is scheduled to be released in early 2014.
Updates with new information on number of arrests
