A voice from the West

With reference to the verdict of Mr. Khodorkovsky by the Russian court, I like to state that in my eyes justice has been done.

I have my own reason for saying that.

My family, - a wife and two children – has been the victim of this system of barbarian capitalism of the ninties in Russia: all our savings (approx. US $ 300.000) have been embezzled by another so called oligarch, Mr. Boris Brezovsky as owner of Aeroflotbank.

I had invested in 1995 in GKOs, bonds of the city of Moscow.
I was asked to transfer the money to the account numbers of Aeroflotbank as well with the Bank of New York (USA) as with Commerzbank (Germany).

Later I was informed that in that period the Aeroflotbank was already not de jure but de facto bankrupt, a fact which the two Western banks were formally obliged to inform me about, but which they did not.

I have contacted the two Western banks (Mrs. Natasha Gurfunkel of the Bank of New York and the legal department of Commerzbank) several times, also through my solicitor, but in vain. However, I could not afford financially to go to court.

And as I didn’t belong to the political and financial elite, I was not able to recuperate my lost money like Mr. George Soros, of whom I heard that he also had invested in GKOs.

So my family had received the coup de grace.

So, this is my little story, next to that of most probably tens of thousand other victims of this robbery capitalism. That is my reason of saying that justice has finally prevailed and that I hope that all the other thiefs will no longer be protected by their Western friends/politicians and been brought to court.

Mr. Blair, PM of the U.K., likes to behave as a knight of moral. I would say , let him finally apply his so called moral standards to this matter and order the extradition of Mr. Berezovsky and others, who nowadays enjoy his hospitality , to Russia so that in the end justice can prevail.

Leo Reyntjens
Belgium

On the photo: Boris Berezovsky