Tycoon arrested

Moscow

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest businessman and owner of the oil company Yukos, was arrested this week on dubious charges of fraud. He is just the latest in a series of Jewish business leaders who have been arrested or exiled since President Vladimir Putin took office. But because Khodorkovsky is the country’s richest man, and Yukos one of its most successful firms, his arrest shocked the political elite and sent the markets tumbling. Most observers saw it as political persecution—retaliation for Khodorkovsky’s support of an anti-Kremlin political party. Russian newspapers were apoplectic. Nezavisimaya gazeta said the arrest was “a blatant declaration of war on civil society,” while Novaya gazeta called it “a coup d’état” by the secret police.

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