A curtain

The performance, which for almost two years was played out for the whole world in the hall on the third floor of the Khamovniki Court, came to an end. Correspondents of The New Times watched the final act of this tragedy

On the stairs sat a woman under 60, in a dressing gown and boots. Next to her stood a zinc bucket of water and a mop stuck in it.

- Shall I sit? she asked a bald, thick man in a decent suit.

"Sit, sit," he replied. “Now it’s finished and it will be necessary to clean it up.”

The woman had to sit for another hour with a little to clean up after those who are still sitting for almost 7 years. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, according to the verdict of Judge Danilkin, may be released in October, and Platon Lebedev - in July of the distant 2017.

vision aberration

Actually, such an outcome could have been predicted on December 16, when the national leader, answering not just a question from the audience, but a question specially selected for his green daddy about the country's most famous prisoner, said: "A thief should be in prison." Translated into judicial Russian, this meant: this is what the prosecutors (14 years old) asked for, that should be given to him. And Judge Danilkin, who during the trial seemed to listen to the arguments of both the prosecution and the defense, immediately called into question all the arguments that Putin's opponents cited. He did not believe the testimony of Putin's former premier Mikhail Kasyanov and former central banker Viktor Gerashchenko, while he considered the testimony of one former minister (Gref) and the current one (Khristenko) to support the prosecution's position. The arguments of the head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, that the company was highly profitable, he dismissed: in fact, according to Judge Danilkin, it was a general aberration of vision caused by the fact that Khodorkovsky hid information from shareholders using a foreign language - “put out reporting documents on his website in English. (Lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant later, during a break, told reporters that the investigators examined this site only 4 years after Khodorkovsky's arrest, that is, already in the fall of 2007.)

The judge also did not see a contradiction between the first case (the Meshchansky court convicted Khodorkovsky and Lebedev for non-payment of taxes) and the second, in which they, in fact, had nothing to pay taxes, since they stole the oil before they managed to sell it. “In the present case, they are accused of other crimes that do not coincide with the previous crimes,” the judge said in the morning of December 30.

December 30th

The fact that the judge will announce the deadline 'a day before the New Year, it became clear the day before. The bailiffs said that they were ready to sit even until the night, but only so that on the 31st they would have a day off. Obviously, their desires coincided with the desires of Danilkin, Putin and Medvedev. In any case, on Thursday morning in the Khamovniki Court, as on Monday, when the announcement of the verdict began, it was overcrowded. It was noticeable how Judge Danilkin was in a hurry: he no longer read page after page, as in the previous three days, but took separate sheets of the verdict. Around 12.30 he began to expose the arguments of the defense, and closer to 15.00 he had already finished. For lawyers, this was a sure sign: now he would announce a break, and then draw a line.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev had fun in the first half of the day as if in the second they would be given a pie and sent home to celebrate the New Year under the Christmas tree. They were terribly amused that they were hiding statements from shareholders using English, and they were clearly amused by the fact that the judge all the time emphasized that they had created an “organized group”, which they led.

However, in the operative part of his verdict, Judge Danilkin did not say anything about the “organized group”, he did not hang an article for that, which suggests that this is the mine that may be needed for the third case, when the new judge can rewrite from the verdict of the previous exile to this same group.

In short, at 15 kopecks Judge Danilkin announced a break for 30 minutes, thereby leaving everyone without lunch. At this time, the entire first floor of the Khamovniki Court was already packed to capacity: there were cameras from all over the world.

Time "H"

To say that there was a mess in the Khamovniki court is to say nothing. But something else is more important: in the building of the civil court, the rules were dictated by the security forces - bailiffs, special forces, policemen. Clerks in civilian clothes, including the press office, huddled in the corners. And in this sense, the Khamovniki court was a clear reflection of the balance of power in the rest of the country.

Khodorkovsky's wife Inna, daughter Nastya, parents, Platon Lebedev's son Mikhail came to the announcement of the deadline - they left a bench for them. The rest of the space in front of the windows was occupied by journalists - from 25 to 30 cameras, plus a writing press in no way less than 70 people. Everyone stood on each other's heads. Bailiffs and special forces with machine guns lined up in a semicircle in the middle of the hall, covering the judicial platform. Then Judge Danilkin entered.

Khodorkovsky visibly tensed up. Lebedev did not laugh either.

Danilkin announced to everyone 8 years under Article 160 of the Criminal Code (part 3, paragraphs "a" and "b") - "appropriation or embezzlement, that is, theft of another's property committed by a person using his official position", and 9 years under article 174-1 of the Criminal Code (part 3) - "legalization of funds or other property committed by a group of persons by prior agreement." By partial addition of terms, both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev received 13 and a half years. (As lawyers explained, the final term cannot be less than any of the term terms, that is, it cannot be less than 9 years and cannot be more than 1.5 times the largest figure, that is, no more than 13 years and 6 months Danilkin - and the judge decides which figure to choose in this fork - and gave the maximum.) knocked off the Moscow City Court). As a result, it turned out 14 years "with serving a sentence in a general regime colony."

At these words, Khodorkovsky's mother Marina Filippovna turned white. Inna's wife was on the verge of fainting. The journalists were unusually silent for themselves - only Danilkin's recitative, rare clicks of cameras (the bailiffs forbade taking pictures, allowing only video) and the sound of cameras were heard.

And then Danilkin said what everyone was waiting for: from what date the term would be calculated: for Khodorkovsky, this is February 7, 2007, and for Lebedev, February 8 of the same year, when they were charged in Chita in the second case. However, the judge subtracted from the final punishment the time that the defendants had served on the first term before being charged with the second: 3 years 3 months and 12 days out of Khodorkovsky's 14 years and 3 years 7 months and 23 days out of the same 14 years of Lebedev.

As a result, it turned out that Mikhail Khodorkovsky should be released in October 2017 (a couple of weeks before the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution - if according to the old style), and Lebedev - 3 months earlier.

True, not everything in this judicial arithmetic is simple, the lawyers say, and they will count and recalculate these figures when they receive a verdict in mid-January. On January 10, they will file a “letuchka”, that is, a short cassation appeal to the Moscow City Court, by the end of the month - a detailed one, based on the protocols of the court sessions and on the verdict.

So far, it is obvious: Judge Danilkin not only did not deviate from the accusation one iota in the text of his verdict, but also gave the term in full: adding and subtracting is in his, the judge's, power. He disposed of her the way he ordered.

When Judge Danilkin finally put an end to it, Marina Filippovna Khodorkovskaya exhaled: “Damn you and your descendants” ...

Not his question

Then everyone was expelled from the hall, then the judge still read the decision to terminate the criminal case on the theft of shares of the Eastern Oil Company, the statute of limitations for which had expired six months before the start of the process. Actually, it didn't matter anymore. Important: Putin said "a thief should be in prison" - and the judge saluted. True, the president said something else, namely that officials should not put pressure on the court by speaking out on the case before the verdict is passed. But Medvedev is already on duty saying the right words. Outside the public field, in response to appeals from high-ranking officials from his administration, who convinced him that a new term for Khodorkovsky would have an extremely negative impact on the country, he replied: "That's not my question."

Not his. Like everyone else, too.

... And in the 7th Rostovsky lane, near the entrance to the Khamovnichesky court, buses with riot police continued to be on duty until late in the evening.