Jailed Tycoon: Putin is Pitiable

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed Russian tycoon whose imprisonment has become a cause celebre, continued his attacks on the Russian government this week. In a newspaper op-ed, published three days before a judge is to rule whether to extend his prison sentence until 2017, Khodorkovsky wrote of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, "I suddenly realized I was sorry for this man—no longer young, but vigorous and horribly lonely in the face of a vast and unsympathetic country." The former head of Yukos was convicted of tax evasion and fraud in 2005, a verdict many in Russia and the international community dispute.