BRUSSELS - The European Union declined to comment Tuesday on the jailing of Yukos oil found Mikhail Khordorkovsky, but said it would continue to urge Russia to develop a favourable climate for investors.
"We will not comment on the details of the charges nor on the sentence in this case," Emma Udwin, spokeswoman for external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, told reporters in Brussels.
"We have other opportunities and use them to explain to our Russian partners that it would be in their interest to create a climate for investors and business more generally that is transparent and non discriminatory," she said.
Khodorkovsky was convicted in Moscow on Tuesday of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison after a politically-charged trial that critics saw as a Kremlin vendetta against Russia's once-richest man.
05/31/2005 12:56 GMT