Second try

Mikhail Khodorkovsky is being sentenced again

The Meshchansky District Court of the capital today should once again try to begin announcing the verdict in the case of the ex-head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former head of the Menatep MFO Platon Lebedev. The previous attempt to put an end to this high-profile case before the May holidays for unknown reasons failed. Then, on April 27, hundreds of people - Russian and foreign lawyers, relatives and friends of eminent defendants, former and current Yukos employees, politicians and human rights activists, journalists, as well as protesters for the release of the defendants - stood in vain at the court doors.

The fact that the court was unable to begin announcing the verdict on time is not a rare phenomenon in Russian judicial practice. And in this case, the assumption of the lawyers of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev that the court overestimated its abilities, taking only two weeks to write a verdict on such a voluminous case, is quite reasonable. Indeed, the criminal case of YUKOS is described in 390 volumes; during the year of court hearings, about 100 witnesses were questioned, many documents, examinations and expert opinions were examined. Assessing all the criminal acts charged against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, and there are more than ten of them - three episodes of large-scale fraud, two failures to comply with court decisions, causing property damage by deception or breach of trust, two cases of embezzlement or embezzlement, two cases of tax evasion with organizations and two - tax evasion from an individual, falsification of documents - the court is obliged to explain in detail its decision on each of them.

But the Khodorkovsky case, without a doubt, can be called political, if only because almost no politician missed the opportunity to see the interests of the authorities in the trial of the oligarch and Yukos as a whole. In January of this year, PACE dedicated a special meeting to the YUKOS case, at which a number of critical remarks were made to Russia regarding violations of the rights of Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and Pichugin. On April 27, various versions of the reasons for postponing the announcement of the verdict were expressed. Some suggested that the verdict was postponed due to the Kremlin’s reluctance to answer relevant questions from distinguished foreign guests who gathered for the celebrations dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Victory. In addition, the originally scheduled announcement of the verdict coincided with Holy Week according to the Orthodox calendar, and this became the second version of the delay in the process. Another version was that the authorities decided to retreat from their principled positions and entered into negotiations with Khodorkovsky. And finally, the last assumption is that the announcement of the verdict will be postponed until the excitement subsides and crowds of journalists and sympathizers stop storming the Meshchansky Court.

Last Friday, the Prosecutor General's Office unexpectedly announced its intention to bring new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in the near future - illegal money laundering. At the same time, it remains unclear what specific episodes this accusation is connected to; the only thing that official representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office Natalya Vishnyakova stated is that the amounts of laundered money amount to billions of rubles. Thus, the Prosecutor General's Office made it clear that Regardless of whether the oligarch is acquitted or convicted, he will still remain in prison. After this message, Khodorkovsky’s lawyers unanimously accused the prosecutor’s office of putting pressure on public opinion. “Vishnyakova’s statement is an uncertainty about the upcoming verdict, an understanding that it is not what they would like, and a desire to show that they still have something in store,” lawyer Genrikh Padva said then.

However, the defenders themselves have different forecasts for the upcoming verdict. Mr. Padwa, in his final speech in court, in particular, expressed confidence that “on the day of your sentencing, true justice will be done, the metal door will open, and the guards will release both wonderful people who are not guilty of the crimes of which they are accused." But Khodorkovsky’s other lawyer, Yuri Schmidt, although he is confident in his client’s innocence, does not count on the triumph of justice. “I don’t believe that Khodorkovsky will be released,” he said.

The announcement of the verdict, if it begins today, will last, as previously expected, three days.

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Ekaterina BUTORINA