This is our evidence

Former press secretary of the Khamovnichesky District Court Natalya Vasilyeva, who declared to the whole country that judge Viktor Danilkin was not the author of the final version of the verdict against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, but acted under pressure from the Moscow City Court, was summoned to the Investigative Committee on June 14. She came there with lawyer Irina Khrunova and brought with her three pages of the original version of the verdict against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, written by Danilkin. According to these papers, the accused should have received 10 years in prison, and not 14, as was the final verdict of the Khamovnichesky Court (later, when considering the cassation appeal, the Moscow City Court reduced the sentence for both to 13 years).

A statement from the human rights association AGORA, which provides legal assistance to Vasilyeva, says that these documents “accidentally ended up in Vasilyeva’s folder with signed documents.” “The crossed out document with three exclamation marks on each page states: “Finally appoint M.B. Khodorkovsky. punishment in the form of imprisonment for a period of 10 (ten) years, to be served in a general regime correctional colony,” the association states. The same applies to Lebedev.

Vasilyeva's interrogation was carried out as part of a pre-investigation check in connection with Khodorkovsky's statement about possible falsification of the verdict.

Danilkin himself and representatives of the Moscow City Court, of course, refuted Vasilyeva’s statements.

Later, the official representative of the Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, said that Vasilyeva had actually retracted her statements that Danilkin did not write the final version of the verdict and that pressure was put on him. According to Markin, cited by Ekho Moskvy, Vasilyeva’s statements are based only on conjectures and assumptions and are not confirmed by any objective data. Khrunova’s lawyer said that the investigator was worried about only two questions: “Did you see how Khodorkovsky’s sentence was written by the judges of the Moscow City Court?” and “Did you hear Judge Viktor Danilkin discuss this sentence with other judges?” According to Khrunova, Vasilyeva “told the investigators the same thing she said before.”