Russia's richest man detained
Special forces in camouflage and black uniforms detained Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of Russia’s largest oil producer, Yukos, at an airport in Siberia today.
Russia’s richest man was forced to return to Moscow for questioning in connection with a criminal investigation into his company, a Yukos press spokesman said.
“They used sort of special forces as if they were dealing with a terrorist,” Alexander Shadrin, press spokesman for Yukos, said. Shadrin confirmed that Khodorkovsky was now in Moscow and was already being questioned.
For months, the Russian prosecutor’s office has been investigating Yukos company officials and Yukos shareholders hoping to find evidence of tax evasion and theft of state property.
Shadrin said that after the plane landed in Novosibirsk it was surrounded by trucks. Special forces in black uniform boarded the plane, shouting “FSB, put your weapons down or we’ll shoot.” The FSB is the Federal Security Service, a successor of the Soviet-era KGB. A representative of the security forces then told Khodorkovsky to accompany them and he agreed.
Khodorkovsky is one of the most prominent of the so-called ”oligarchs” in Russia, men who made huge fortunes in a very short time after the collapse of the Soviet Union by acquiring state property at low prices.
