Natalya Vasilyeva submitted to the Investigative Committee sheets with a different term to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev

Former press secretary of the Khamovniki Court in Moscow, Natalya Vasilyeva, summoned for questioning by the Investigative Committee of Russia, handed over to the investigator three pages from a document that her defense calls “an undisclosed verdict on Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.” From the contents of the pages it follows that at first, Viktor Danilkin, who presided over the trial in the second YUKOS case, allegedly intended to sentence the accused to ten years in prison each. Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, we recall, received 14 years in prison (later the Moscow City Court reduced their sentence by a year). The Khamovnichesky Court claims that the sentences are not typed in the same font as the sheets provided to the investigation by Ms. Vasilyeva. In turn, the Investigative Committee of Kommersant stated that the documents provided by Ms. Vasilyeva do not indicate falsification of the verdict against Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.

The official representative of the department, Vladimir Markin, announced this morning that Natalya Vasilyeva was summoned for questioning at the Investigative Committee. As Kommersant has already reported, some time ago, lawyers for the ex-head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former head of MENATEP Platon Lebedev appealed to the investigative authorities with a request to initiate a criminal case against Judge Viktor Danilkin, who presided over the trial in the second YUKOS case, for the fact of issuing a deliberately unjust verdict. The reason for contacting the Investigative Committee was the speeches of the former press secretary of the Khamovnichesky Court, Natalya Vasilyeva, in which she claimed that the verdict was written for Mr. Danilkin in the Moscow City Court. The pre-investigation check was entrusted to the investigator for particularly important cases under the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Drymanov,

“This is an obvious sign of a crime.”

Ms. Vasilyeva was a little late for the time assigned to her by the investigator at the Investigative Committee, explaining this by Moscow traffic jams. After which the survey took place. After it ended, Ms. Vasilyeva’s lawyer, Irina Khrunova, reported that the conversation took place correctly, and no pressure was put on her trustee. According to Ms. Khrunova, the investigation was interested in whether Natalya Vasilyeva personally heard how Mr. Danilkin discussed the verdict of Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev with anyone, and whether she saw that representatives of the Moscow City Court took part in writing the court decision. Ms. Vasilyeva, according to her lawyer, answered both questions in the negative, after which she handed over three pages to the investigation, which were added to the inspection materials. As Ms. Khrunova says, this was a crossed out version of the operative part of the sentence, which was not passed on Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and which stated that both should receive ten years in prison.

Ms. Khrunova herself believes that a criminal case will not be initiated based on the results of the inspection, since this could serve as a basis for revising the sentence, which has already entered into legal force.

How Natalya Vasilyeva shook the foundations of the judicial-executive vertical

“We said that the verdict was fake long before Vasilyeva’s statement,” Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant told Kommersant. “And the fact that the judge was not independent was known earlier. What is interesting is not this, but how the check at the UPC will end, the result of which will show whether this is really a fair trial based on our application or just another pretence. It doesn’t matter how much was written on the piece of paper - ten years or ten days. They included these sheets - and that’s good.”

In turn, the Khamovnichesky Court told Kommersant that the sheets submitted by Ms. Vasilyeva to the Investigative Committee ( they are already posted on the Internet ) do not even correspond in format and font to the standard texts of the verdicts.

The Investigative Committee, in turn, told Kommersant that the documents provided by Ms. Vasilyeva will be carefully studied and checked for authenticity. At the same time, the department noted that these papers themselves are not evidence of falsification of the verdict against Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.

Nikolay Sergeev

“More than enough grounds to initiate a criminal case”

Platon Lebedev’s lawyer Konstantin Rivkin told Kommersant FM about the documents provided by Natalya Vasilyeva.

– Have you already seen these documents on the Internet?

– No, I didn’t see it on the Internet, but I already have information that this happened.

– How important is it, from your point of view, the appearance of such documents?

- Well, in general, the very fact of the appearance of this document is important, first of all, because it confirms what is already clear to us, the defenders - Ms. Vasilyeva has spoken and is telling the truth. This is the most basic thing. As for the substance... Well, it's difficult for me to evaluate a document that I haven't seen. But based on the totality of the invoice that we provided in our statement to the investigative authorities, in my opinion, there are more than enough grounds to initiate a criminal case and conduct a full-fledged investigation into these facts.

– Well, in this situation, whose responsibility is it? Investigative Committee?

- Duty of what?

- Let's initiate a criminal case.

- Certainly. No one else can do this. That's why we turned there. The Criminal Procedure Code directly assigns this type of responsibility to the Investigative Committee. Especially when it comes to employees of the prosecutor’s office and investigative authorities.

– Well, representatives of the human rights organization “Agora”, who help Natalya Vasilyeva, said today that the conversation at the Investigative Committee was formal. I asked what formal meant. Well, they say that the questions were: “Did you yourself see how the verdict was signed?” She naturally says: “No.” Well, and so on. That is, how seriously do the Investigative Committee take this story now? Or is there simply some kind of fulfillment of instructions that were received from above, which simply cannot be ignored?

- Let's start with the fact that I am one of several lawyers who have already attended the same survey. This is the most important thing. This means that, according to my observations, there are a number of signs that indicate that the verification is carried out purely formally. First of all, this inspection was assigned to Mr. Drymanov, an investigator for particularly important cases, who some time ago headed the team in the YUKOS case. That is, formally he checks himself and checks his colleagues who were doing the same thing. Moreover, in the written notice when we were all invited there, there is a charming paragraph that says up front that they are not going to check most of our arguments, because they believe that these arguments are related to disagreement with the verdict. Although in fact, we analyzed the verdict precisely on the basis of demonstrating to the investigative authorities an invoice indicating that it was probably not Mr. Danilkin who wrote the verdict. And they are already dismissing this in advance. Therefore, for example, I am somewhat skeptical about the efforts of the team headed by Drymanov, who is now conducting a pre-investigation check. So far there is no objectivity in their actions.

- It's clear. Thank you. Well, then another question. Do you have any information about where your clients have been transferred or not yet?

- No no. The Federal Penitentiary Service did not deign to inform us. Neither us nor our relatives. So we wait.

Themes:

The case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky

“Ten years or ten days, it makes no difference”