The meeting sounds like a screenwriter’s dream: incarcerated ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, flying across Siberia to the former’s trial in Moscow — on the latter’s presidential plane. Strange as it seems, eyewitnesses who saw the plane before takeoff believe it really happened.

Khodorkovsky, whose oil company was gutted by the Kremlin after he expressed political aspirations in 2003, has been in a Siberian prison since 2005. On February 19, President Medvedev paid an official visit to Chita, a Siberian city not far from the prison. The next day, Khodorkovsky arrived in Moscow to stand trial. Witnesses say the plane used to transport Khodorkovsky bore the presidential standard along with the logo of the private government airline reserved for top Kremlin officials. There has been no official confirmation from the government that the president gave Khodorkovsky a lift to his trial, but it would be foolish to expect one.

Khodorkovsky's mother recently stated to Reuters that she's placed all her hope in Medvedev to “save” her son. The 43-year-old Russian president, who took office in March 2008 after an outgoing Vladimir Putin all but appointed him, has essentially inherited the state crusade against Khodorkovsky from his mentor’s administration. Though Medvedev’s personal feelings about the case are impossible to know, a clandestine meeting would almost certainly have been necessary for him to speak with Khodorkovsky face to face.

Proceedings in the Khodorkovsky trial, where he faces charges of embezzlement and money laundering, began yesterday.

Важный этап [Gazeta.ru]
На чем Ходорковский мог прилететь в Москву [Gazeta.ru]

Photo courtesy Itar-Tass, by Artyom Drachyov