British journo 'twisted Khodorkovsky’s words in made-up letter’

The Sunday Telegraph never got any letter from Mikhail Khodorkovsky, admitted reporter Tom Parfitt who claimed his article was based on a message from the imprisoned ex-oligarch. In a piece published on May 26, the journalist refers to “a letter” that  “passed to The Sunday Telegraph from his prison cell,” saying that “Khodorkovsky urged a ban on 308 officials including high-profile figures such as Russian deputy prime minister Vladislav Surkov, youth leader Vasily Yakemenko and controversial elections chief Vladimir Churov.” Russia’s radio Svoboda says it contacted the reporter after the lawyers of the imprisoned tycoon said the article misrepresented Khodorkovsky’s words in the headline and refers to a letter that never existed. The journalist admitted that his newspaper did not receive any message from the imprisoned ex-head of Yukos, and that Khodorkovsky was only interviewed by the newspaper in written form. “The fact that Khodorkovsky referred to Garry Kasparov’s list of 308 Russian officials involved in human rights violation and urged the British government to compare it to the list of Russian delegation members invited to the Olympics in London gave me a reason to assert that he’d want Britain to ban them from visiting the Olympics,” Tom Parfitt told Svoboda Radio. The press-center website of the former head of Yukos Khodorkovsky and the former head of Menatep Group Platon Lebedev published the full text of the interview. According to this, the ex-tycoon was asked whether the UK should deny entry permission to Vladimir Putin during the Olympics in London. “It’ll be very difficult for the British government to ban any head of state from coming to the Olympics, especially if this state is a member of the Big Eight and the Council of Europe,” Khodorkovsky answered, adding that “the British government could do something to emphasize the importance of human rights while hosting the Olympics.” “In June 2011 one of the Russian opposition leaders Garry Kasparov presented the US House of Representatives with a list of people involved in human rights abuse, and I would call on the British government to pay extra attention to Kasparov’s list and compare it to the list of the Russian delegation members who are set to visit London in 2012,” Khodorkovsky said. Garry Kasparov presented US Congressmen with the blacklist of high-ranking Russian officials who according to rights organizations were involved in violation of human rights. The US House of Representatives was then discussing a bill to pass visa sanctions on foreign officials involved in rights abuse. In May, the British Foreign Office announced its decision to ban foreign officials guilty of rights violations from the London Olympics.