Editorial Board
Putin’s Pretend Justice
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Granting freedom to a man who was wrongly imprisoned is always progress. But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement today that he plans to pardon former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky merely confirms the arbitrary nature of the Russian justice system.
Khodorkovsky’s release, which will come after he spent a decade behind bars for politically motivated convictions, will depend on the whim of just one man in the Kremlin: Putin. That’s fitting, if depressing, because so did his two court convictions for shady business practices that were common among his peers at the time.