Суд мести

In fact, it's simpler than that. In April 2003 the officials wrote to their president with the truth. A month later Putin made it clear that you could get into trouble for that kind of truth. They all got the message, and nothing more was put down on paper. This is still how it's done in our country, where those in power decide everything and answer for nothing.

Curiously, when people high up in the Central Committee decided that the time had come to have my grandfather shot, they came up against a similar problem. It was only 1935, and many rank-and-file party members were still unaware that the camps awaited those who voted with their consciences. Three times in a row, a special envoy from Comrade Stalin himself had to ask them to vote on the execution order, because of the secret ballot rule. Only the third time round, with a roll call imposed, did they understand what was required of them and vote the order through. That was after the envoy had explained to them the price of standing by their own opinions. Two years later, nobody was going to risk their life by choosing between his own conscience and that of the Bolshevik politburo. This has much in common with the case in hand, don't you think?

An important detail: in his letter to the president, Ustinov inter alia directly refers to Menatep's accuser and reveals his interest in the case. This arises from the Akron company, which also traded in apatite and was close to Prusak, who filed the original complaint. Apatit's new proprietor revived a failing business and reviewed loss-making contracts. Ustinov takes up the story: "At the end of 2002, contracts for 2003 deliveries of apatite concentrate were signed with Akron. But Akron subsequently declined to take the product and instead offered Apatit a 10-year contract for the concentrate, at a fixed price that Apatit calculated was not economic."

Having lost out on getting something for almost nothing when Khodorkovskiy arrived on the scene, the blackmail artists at Akron then denounced him, via Prusak, to Putin himself. Ustinov commented thus: "The Akron company was entitled by law to refer this to the Court of Arbitration or the Moscow Chamber of Arbitration, on the grounds of coercive business practices, but declined to do so." The Prosecutor General speaks in officialese, but nonetheless he makes it clear who's in the right and who's the shyster.

Shortly afterwards these allegations, levelled by interested parties and rivals to Khodorkovskiy, would be taken by investigators as the truth. And the investigators at the Procuracy General handling the Apatit affair would acquire "consultants" - the selfsame managers of Akron of whom Ustinov had written in his letter to Putin. That is, those who had slandered Menatep were now regarded as the experts by investigators with little knowledge of commerce!

Our president often holds forth about our independent judiciary. It's one of his favourite topics. But anyone who wishes can judge his sincerity for themselves by reading in its entirety letter No. 7/3-1833-2002, from which I've quoted here and which is given in full in the appendix to this book.

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