The lawyer of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky has filed a complaint to the European Council about unpaid compensation from Russia, the Kommersant newspaper reported Friday.
The €10,000 ($11,000) compensation was awarded to Khodorkovsky by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2013 after they ruled his rights were violated during his criminal investigation, trial and detention in Russia. They found that his prosecution was not politically motivated.
Jonathan Glasson said that the money was due to be paid three years ago but that the Russian government had misled the Cabinet of Ministers by constantly changing the grounds of nonpayment in a “protracted correspondence.” Glasson’s appeal is expected to be considered in the first half of the next month.
Khodorkovsky was planning to give the money to charity, his lawyers claimed.
Former CEO of the Yukos oil company, Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man. He later spent more than a decade in jail on tax evasion and embezzlement charges but was freed after receiving a pardon from President Vladimir Putin in 2013. In December 2015, he was charged in absentia of masterminding two murders.
Khodorkovsky denies the charges, claiming that his prosecution is politically motivated.
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