First, the defendant is accused of misappropriating a 20 per cent block of the Apatite mineral fertilizer company. Whatever relevant papers are in his file fail to prove the suspicion, he said. "The state received the price it was demanding. The company was lying in ruins at the time, and the government was happy to get the Apatite off its hands."
Second comes alleged misappropriation of a 44 per cent block of the NIUIF, or Research Institute of Fertilizers and Fungicides. Here, too, the government appointed the price on its own. "It was a well-grounded price, if we proceed from the developments of those years. The institute was going bankrupt, and would eventually be sold off for debts to house a nightclub." Now, it is an all-round research center to offer postgraduate tuition and work on industrial contracts.
As for Yukos money allegedly embezzled to pass it to the Most group, under Vladimir Gusinsky's control, the loan was reimbursed with interest. "I was a Yukos holder, and I was interested in it making profits. I just can't see how the prosecution could accuse me of embezzling my own money."
"A pack of lies!" the defendant snapped at the tax evasion accusation. He is charged with taxes unpaid to a million dollars while he was every year donating rubles by the billion on charity. "I have no yachts, palatial mansions or soccer clubs. I was earning only what my family needed to live a decent life," said Mr. Khodorkovsky, who described himself as "tycoon of the wrong kind".
He said the notorious auction to sell Yuganskneftegas, main Yukos production branch, was sheer make-believe.
"I have no big property on my hands anymore. I am no longer a businessman. I have preserved only one treasure-the knowledge that I was right in everything I was doing."
The defendant said he was proud of everything he had accomplished within his fifteen years in Big Biz. "I raised dozens-even hundreds of industrial companies from the ruins. When I appeared in petroleum industry, I revived Russia's largest oil company to outrun LUKoil. It was none but Yukos to call for business transparency.
"My trial is coming to an end. I hope it will change the Russian community.
"I love Russia, and I believe it will be a law-based state."
That was just the reason, pointed out Mikhail Khodorkovsky, why he had not emigrated and why he had not run for Russian presidency.
"Some people were deliberately misinforming the President about my political activities," he emphatically added.
