MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin denied charges that the widely publicized trial of Yukos founder and the nation's richest man Mikhail Khodorkovsky was political.
"Khodorkovsky was never involved in politics," Putin said in an interview he gave to Brazilian journalists ahead of his visit to the South American country.
"He was never a... parliament deputy... he never headed a political party," the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian leader as saying.
"So it is wrong to cast the criminal side of this case as political," he said.
Khodorkovsky, a billionaire tycoon and founder of Russia's largest oil company, was arrested on October 25, 2003 in a climax to what has become known here as the "Yukos affair."
He has been in jail ever since, facing charges of fraud and embezzlement. His trial began in July and is expected to run well into the winter.
Meanwhile the tax ministry has slapped Yukos -- which was the first Russian major to adopt Western accounting standards and was considered the nation's best-run company prior to Khodorkovsky's arrest -- with a staggering 24 billion dollars (18.5 billion euros) of back tax claims, penalties and fines.
The government plans to sell the company's crown jewel Yuganskneftegas, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the firm's oil production, to settle the claim.
Analysts here have said that the case against Khodorkovsky and his firm is Kremlin revenge for the tycoon's political ambitions.
Khodorkovsky had financed opposition parties prior to last year's parliamentary elections, had plans to bypass the state pipeline monopoly by constructing private pipes to carry Yukos oil to China, and, according to some, even harbored presidential ambitions.
Putin and other senior government officials have repeatedly denied that the Yukos affair was politically motivated, saying prosecutors were simply pursuing tax cheats.
"Everyone must be equal before the law," Putin said in Sunday's interview.
11/21/2004 - 13:57 GMT - AFP