THE jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has gone on hunger strike to protest against the treatment by prison authorities of his business partner, who has been placed in solitary confinement.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, issued a statement through his lawyers saying that he had been refusing food and water for several days to show solidarity with Platon Lebedev.

“It is obvious that they threw my friend into the isolation cell to avenge me, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for articles and interviews,” said the statement read out by one of the tycoon’s lawyers, Anton Drel. “Let the Kremlin believe that it is showing its strength. In fact, this is a demonstration of weakness and fear,” it said. “I began a hunger strike in solidarity with my friend, Platon Lebedev. He knows that he is not alone. And all of my compatriots whose hearts beat for justice and freedom should know: we are together.”

The two were sentenced to nine years in jail for tax evasion and fraud in May in what was seen as a Kremlin-instigated move to curb Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions and carve up his assets.

The bulk of his oil company, Yukos, was sold back to the State this year to meet a multibillion-dollar tax bill that was also seen as politically motivated, although the Kremlin denies any involvement in either case.

Khodorkovsky was moved from a three-man cell to an eleven-man one this month in what his lawyers say was punishment for issuing statements in the media criticising the Kremlin. About the same time Mr Lebedev was moved from a hospital cell, where he was receiving medical treatment, to an ordinary nine-man cell, according to his lawyer.

Lebedev was then put in solitary confinement for seven days, starting last Friday, for refusing to take his daily walk in the prison yard and insulting warders at the Matrosskaya Tishina (Sailor’s Rest) prison.

Solitary confinement can last up to ten days. Lebedev’s lawyers said that the punishment could be severely damaging to their client’s health, which has deteriorated rapidly since his arrest in July 2003.

His doctors say that he is suffering from hepatitis and possibly liver cancer but prison doctors say that there is nothing wrong with him.

Yuri Shmidt, another lawyer for Khodorkovsky, also accused the authorities yesterday of trying to block his client’s attempt to stand in a by-election for the Duma, the lower house of parliament. Under election laws Khodorkovsky is allowed to run as long as his verdict is under appeal and he is still being held in pre-trial detention. But Mr Shmidt said that court officials were hastening the appeal process to keep his client from standing.

Khodorkovsky’s lawyers were given only a few days to study several thousand pages of the 15 volumes of transcripts of the court hearings, he said.

At least two liberal opposition leaders have confirmed that they will back Khodorkovsky’s bid for the seat in Moscow’s 201st University electoral district.

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