Russia: Moscow's controversial onslaught against the huge Yukos oil firm shows the rule of law is collapsing in Russia, and could send a severe chill through relations between the Kremlin and the EU during Ireland's presidency, starting in January, according to a lawyer for jailed billionaire Mr Mikhail Khodorkovsky, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow
Mr Robert Amsterdam said the arrest of Russia's richest man, a critic of the Kremlin, and several other top Yukos shareholders, showed that shadowy allies of President Vladimir Putin now effectively controlled the country's legal system.
Mr Khodorkovsky was seized by special agents on his private jet in Siberia on October 25th, and is accused of involvement in more than $1 billion-worth of fraud and tax evasion, in a case that sent the Russian stock market plunging and raised fears of a creeping coup by men who followed Mr Putin from the KGB to the Kremlin.
Prosecutors also froze some 40 per cent of shares in Yukos, a move which prompted the US and EU to raise fears over ownership rights and the rule of law in Russia, where Mr Khodorkovsky says he is being persecuted for funding parties that will stand against Mr Putin's supporters in next month's parliamentary elections.
"We are watching a gathering storm," Mr Amsterdam told The Irish Times. "The Khodorkovsky case is emblematic of a retrograde step that has the potential to become a serious threat to the West in future," the Toronto-based lawyer said.
"The absence of the rule of law creates unpredictability, and as it grows domestically, so it grows in foreign affairs. If you want stable politics, the greatest indicator of this is the level of democracy and openness in a society."
Mr Putin has presided over the closure or state takeover of all Russia's independent television stations, and many critics say he is making Mr Khodorkovsky an example to others who may consider challenging his power. Most Russians, though, have little sympathy for the oil baron, one of a coterie of so-called oligarchs who made billions overnight in rigged privatisations of state assets in the post-Soviet turmoil of the 1990s.