RusEnergy

RBC, 12.07.2006, Moscow 16:22:07.Certain preconditions must be met before Mikhail Khodorkovsky can be granted an amnesty, Russian President Vladimir Putin told French television channel TF-1. Any person, irrespective of their official position or capital they may have accumulated, must follow and abide by the law, he stressed. The state is an enforcement vehicle established to ensure equal conditions for all of its citizens - equal conditions for development and achievement of success, Putin said. The so-called "oligarchs", according to him, are those that had taken advantage of the transition period in the country's economy and legal system and who, by circumventing national and majority interests had amassed billions worth of capital by unlawful means. And if such a fact is proven in court, they must bear the responsibility for it, the Russian President maintained. He agreed that a possibility for amnesty, as well as other similar procedures to reduce an imprisonment term, was envisaged in the law, adding that it could be put to use within the terms of the current legislation.