MOSCOW, May 31 (RIA Novosti) - In an unprecedented move, former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was sentenced along with his business partner Platon Lebedev, to nine years in prison today, intends to give a news conference from jail, his lawyer Anton Drel said. This will be the first-ever news conference from jail in Russian history, Drel said. "Freedom is my living space," Drel quoted Khodorkovsky as saying. The former Yukos CEO intends to appeal the verdict.
"It is highly important for me to gain truth and justice in my native country," Drel quoted Khodorkovsky as saying. Drel said that Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, maintains his innocence.
"The judiciary system became a speechless appendage and a blind instrument of the state," Drel quoted Khodorkovsky as saying. "Freedom is an inner state of mind. They do not see it. I have the right to think. This is my freedom. People who are slaves to their mind are the real prisoners."
Khodorkovsky intends to continue his public activities and set up a number of charity funds, including one to help Russian prisoners, Drel told journalists, adding Khodorkovsky will "fight for his freedom, the freedom of Platon Lebedev and future Russian generations."
