Category Nation/CIS
Source RosBusinessConsulting

MOSCOW — Yury Kalinin, director of Russia’s federal penal service, denied reports that jailed businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky had gone on hunger strike. Kalinin said Khodorkovsky had not informed the administration of the Moscow Detention Center No.1, where he is jailed, of his hunger strike.

“We will find out who disseminated this false information,” Kalinin said, adding that Khodorkovsky received food products worth $1,000 a month. “With such attitude to his health, how can he go on hunger strike? Under our internal regulations, if a man in custody goes on hunger strike, he shall inform the administration of the detention center, after which the person is placed under medical supervision. Under law, if his health deteriorates, the prison’s administration can resort to forced feeding,” Kalinin said.

Reports appeared on Tuesday that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of oil company YUKOS, had begun a hunger strike in protest against unfair treatment of his ex-business partner, MENATEP Group head Platon Lebedev, who was moved to an isolation cell. “He knows that he is not alone,” Khodorkovsky said in his statement released through his lawyer Anton Drel.

“On August 19, 2005, on the anniversary of the 1991 Putsch, my comrade Platon Lebedev was moved to a 3 square meter isolation cell. Formally, this was punishment for his refusal from walks,” the statement says. But Khodorkovsky is convinced that this is just a pretext.

“Platon is seriously ill, and he has been unable to take prison walks for more than a year already. Apparently, they threw my friend into a punishment cell in order to avenge me for my articles and interviews" he stressed. “Let the Kremlin officials think that by doing so, it demonstrates its strength. But in fact this reveals their weakness and fear: being unable to start an open political debate with me, they use their last resort weapon – isolation cell,” he said.