Let that be a lesson to you. Photograph: AP
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive of Russian oil giant Yukos, has been sentenced to nine years in prison for a range of fraud-related offences. That is a pretty harsh punishment, especially given the state of Russian prisons.
In fact the Russian justice system is in a pretty shoddy state generally. Corrupt, venal, selective in the implementation of laws which are often written and applied to suit the commercial and political interests of the highest bidder. But in this case a force above the usual run of judicial horse-trading was involved. When Vladimir Putin is crossed all bets are off. Presidential need for scapegopat trumps oil magnate's thirst for power.
No one who has been following this case is in much doubt that Khodorkovsky's crime was crossing the line between business and politics. Other tax-evading oligarchs (if you'll pardon the tautology) have been amnestied. From a purely strategic point of view Putin has won this one hands down - a shot across the bows of the ultra-rich to keep them loyal to the Kremlin, but stopping short of the kind of anti-wealth crack-down that would permanently sour Russia's relations with investors.
Khodorkovsky is not a very likely martyr for Russian liberals. He came up through the Komsomol, the old Communist party youth wing, membership of which can only testify to unprincipled ambition. Then he made his fortune in what was probably the most rapacious plundering of state assets for personal gain in all recorded history.
But that doesn't mean that justice has been done. Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day, and sometimes a Russian court convicts a guilty man. The rule of law didn't enter into it. Might, as ever in Russia, was right.
