I mentioned the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case briefly in lecture on Thursday, when talking about the sorts of tactics Putin has used to keep potential opponents at bay. Khodorkovsky was prosecuted in 2005 for tax evasion and fraud, in a case that seemed to many people to be politically motivated; it was only when Khodorkovsky started to fund opposition parties that he was targeted. After being jailed, Khodorkovsky brought his case to the European Court of Human Rights, which has now ruled that he cannot prove that his prosecution was politically motivated, though it agreed with him that his rights were violated in other ways. And it's true that it's difficult to show to the satisfaction of a court of law that his prosecution was solely political, since he probably did dodge his taxes!
How should we evaluate this sort of case politically (not legally)?
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