Pavel Khodorkovsky: Optimistic about father's release

Pavel Khodorkovsky says he is optimistic that his father will be released from jail in August of next year. Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been imprisoned in Russia for ten years. He was first arrested in October 2003 on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement.

His lawyers have always maintained that the charges against him are trumped up, carried out on the orders of senior figures in the Kremlin who objected when his activities strayed into the political arena.

The former head of oil giant Yukos and at the time Russia's richest man, he was jailed in 2005 for eight years and had been due for release in 2011 but in 2009 was put on trial again on further charges of embezzlement and money laundering.

His son Pavel Khodorkovsky said the Russian government had many new pressing issues to deal with and releasing his father "would not necessarily be the worst thing for them to do"

You can watch the full interview on BBC World News on Monday 21 October at 14:30 and 20:30 GMT and on the BBC News Channel at 00:30 on Tuesday 22 October.

Watch more clips at HARDtalk's website

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