Tycoon’s Case Hurt Russia, Adviser Says

MOSCOW — A senior economic adviser to President Dmitri A. Medvedev acknowledged Wednesday that the criminal conviction of the former oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky last month had harmed Russia’s image and ability to attract foreign investment.

“I think that a significant part of the international community will have serious questions, and the assessment of the risks of working in Russia will increase,” said the adviser, Arkady V. Dvorkovich, in an interview with an online newspaper, gazeta.ru.

The unusually frank statement was a rare admission that the case was widely seen as evidence that the authorities in Russia could manipulate the courts to persecute critics.

Once the country’s richest man, Mr. Khodorkovsky had angered Russia’s paramount leader, Vladimir V. Putin, by taking part in politics and was arrested in 2003. The prison term for his first conviction expires this year.

Mr. Putin and more hard-line associates are viewed in Russia as having orchestrated the second conviction to prolong Mr. Khodorkovsky’s incarceration. He is now to remain behind bars until 2017.

Mr. Dvorkovich is considered among the most liberal, Western-oriented senior advisers in the government — he attended graduate school at Duke University — and he works for Mr. Medvedev, not for Mr. Putin.

In the interview, he did not directly criticize the verdict, saying that he did not know whether it was proper because he was not involved in the case. But he noted that Mr. Khodorkovsky was appealing and that the legal process was not over.

Still, Mr. Dvorkovich’s comments suggested some division in the upper echelons of the government over how Mr. Khodorkovsky had been treated. Mr. Medvedev has repeatedly declared that he wants to crack down on official corruption and bolster judicial independence. The guilty verdict appeared to dent Mr. Medvedev’s credibility.

Mr. Dvorkovich said he expected the case to be an important topic among participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month. Mr. Medvedev is to give a major address there, and many Russian officials are to attend.

“We will see how members of the Russian delegation will be questioned about this, and then the attitude of investors will be known,” Mr. Dvorkovich said.