Medvedev challenged by Khodorkovsky

The jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who only five years ago was ranked the richest man in Russia and the 16th wealthiest in the world, but who now languishes in a jail in the eastern Russian city of Chita on what his friends say are trumped up tax evasion charges, has decided to test the new Russian president's promise to uphold the rule of law.

Khodorkovsky (pictured), who still has three years to go of an eight-year prison sentence, has been eligible for early release since October. But while his arch-enemy Vladimir Putin remained president, it was thought pointless to apply for it.

Yesterday his lawyer Yuri Shmidt filed a request for parole, citing President Medvedev's recent promises to end what he himself has called Russia's "legal nihilism'. Shmidt told reporters: "We wish Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvede] success absolutely sincerely. If he manages to achieve real independence for the courts, it would not be reform. It would be a revolution."

Khodokorvsky was the head of the oil giant Yukos when armed federal agents stormed his private jet at Novosibirsk Tolmachevo airport in October 2003 and took him straight to a Moscow courtroom where he was charged with tax evasion and fraud. But the real reason for his subsequent imprisonment is thought to have been his funding of several opposition parties, and his overtures to Americans, including Dick Cheney, to take a stake in Yukos. Far from that happening, with Khodorvosky safely in jail, Yukos was taken over by the state oil company, Rosneft.

As well as hoping that Medvedev will live by his word and not interfere in Khodorkosky's fate, his lawyer has another ace up his sleeve.

Days before he became eligible for parole last October, prison authorities accused Khodorkovsky of violating an arcane prison rule - you must hold your hands behind your back during any walk in the exercise yard - which would be enough to scupper a parole request. Khodorkovsky maintained that the charge was fabricated, saying he had been ordered by a prison guard to button his jacket and hold his hands behind his back simultaneously.

Now a former cellmate, a convicted car thief called Igor Gnezdilov, has told the political magazine Kommersant Vlast that the prison administration used emotional blackmail to get him to sign a declaration that Khodorkovsky had broken the hands-behind-the-back rule when he hadn't. Gnezdilov was told that if he refused to sign, he would be denied parole himself.