The oligarch, his wife and a plot worthy of Netflix...
THE wife of a Russian oligarch exiled in the UK is suing an American writer over a play that depicts her as a prostitute and murderer.
Inna Khodorkovsky, the wife of pro-democracy campaigner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is seeking $75,000 for defamation and emotional distress caused by a play staged in Washington DC this year called Kleptocracy, which is based on her husband’s relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
She claims the playwright, Kenneth Lin – who was a writer on Netflix series House Of Cards – and director Jackson Gay are ‘accomplices’ to the Kremlin’s alleged attempts to discredit her former billionaire husband.
In the 1990s, Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man, owning oil giant Yukos. But after calling for reform in Russia and funding opposition parties, he was accused of murder and jailed for a decade.
After his release, he came to London, where he lives with his wife. The European Court of Human Rights and Amnesty International have called his trial unfair and politically motivated. Court documents filed in the US claim that Lin and Gay ‘either knowingly, recklessly or unwittingly, have become accomplices in Putin and the Kremlin’s plan to malign and discredit the prodemocracy and anti-corruption opponents of the Putin regime’.
The documents say Putin and the Kremlin ‘have engaged in an organised disinformation campaign [against Khodorkovsky] in order to destroy his reputation’.
Lin, Gay and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment.