MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian government said Thursday it had not appealed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that could prompt a rollback of the Yukos case.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled in July that the rights of former Yukos oil company head Mikhail Khodorkovsky were violated during his trial and continuing imprisonment in Russia in the 2000s.
Russia had three months to appeal the ruling, but did not do so, the press service of the Justice Ministry said, without elaborating.
The European court awarded Khodorkovsky 10,000 euros ($13,500) in damages. The tycoon was worth $15 billion at the time of his arrest in 2003, according to Forbes.
The court also dismissed Khodorkovsky’s claims that the fraud and embezzlement charges against him were political fabrication by the Kremlin.
Rights violations confirmed by the Strasbourg court could lead to the repeal of the sentence in the first Yukos case and a new investigation, the Justice Ministry said in July.
The decision rests with Russia’s Supreme Court, which gave no indication when it could review the case.
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were jailed in 2005 and saw their sentences extended until August 2014 and May 2014, respectively, following a second trial on related charges in 2010.
