Mikhail Khodorkovsky instructed his lawyer to appeal the arrest of $5 billion in Switzerland although the money does not belong to him personally.
Photo: Grigory Tambulov
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Basmanny Court Fabricates a Criminal Group
// Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s
The YUKOS Affair
Yesterday in the Moscow City Court, lawyers for YUKOS cofounders Mikhail Khodorskovsky, Platon Lebedev, and Vasily Shakhnovsky appealed five rulings of the Basmanny District Court regarding the arrest in Switzerland of $5 billion in accounts connected with MFO MENATEP. The following statement in the text of these rulings is worth noting: “The court has established that Khodorkovsky organized a criminal group.” Thus, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has actually been convicted even before his case is heard in court.
On March 12, 2004, acting chairman of the Basmanny Court, Olga Solopova, submitted the five rulings to the Prosecutor General’s Office petitioning the arrest of Swiss bank accounts of legal entities and individuals, who according to the investigation were connected with the so-called YUKOS affair. The judge submitted a separate ruling for each bank where there was an account. She indicated the total amount of blocked funds, with reference to information from the Swiss Prosecutor General’s Office calculating that YUKOS and its owners kept 6.2 billion Swiss francs or $5 billion in that country.
The law granted the concerned parties ten days to appeal Judge Solopova’s rulings in the Moscow City Court. Yesterday, on the last day of the specified period, the court received two appeals, one from lawyer Genrikh Padva in the interests of YUKOS co-owners Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vasily Shakhnovsky and the other from lawyer Timofei Gridnev in the interests of Platon Lebedev, a shareholder of that company.
In a conversation with the Kommersant correspondent, defence attorney Genrikh Padva called Judge Solopova’s rulings on the arrest of the funds “wholly illegal”. In his opinion, the judge committed a procedural infraction when she wrote “arrest the accounts”, whereas only the Prosecutor General’s Office has the right to arrest, and the court can only authorize this action. Moreover, the defence attorneys read the following in all five rulings: “The court has established that Khodorkovsky organized a criminal group.” The Prosecutor General’s Office has accused Khodorkovsky of this, but he has still not been tried, which Judge Solopova evidently forgot about.
According to Genrikh Padva, the judge did not indicate in her rulings what connection the arrested accounts had with the YUKOS affair. Specifically, she did not indicate the reason for blocking the account of the Veteran Petroleum Fund, which according to the lawyer was set up “for social protection of approximately 35 000 employees” (for a detailed account, see Kommersant of March 13).
– I want to emphasize, – Mr. Padva said, “that only pennies of these 6.2 billion Swiss francs previously blocked by the Swiss Prosecutor General’s Office and threatened with arrest belong to individuals, and my client Khodorkovsky does not own a single kopeck. But our Prosecutor General’s Office found it advantageous to create a false impression among the public that all this money was “stolen” by YUKOS shareholders. Even the tax authorities’ civil suit against YUKOS specifies a much smaller amount. So what were the grounds for arresting the remaining money? The court hasn’t responded to this question. What’s more, Judge Solopova ordered the arrest of Vasily Shakhnovsky’s account “to settle the civil suit of the tax inspectorate,” whereas this suit was withdrawn long ago and the decision of the Meshchansky Court on this matter has entered into force.”
However, the head of the Basmanny Court has not hampered consideration of the complaints against her and yesterday ordered the court office to set a date for their consideration in the Moscow City Court (this is the procedure for fixing the date for appeals received initially in lower courts, where they are filed). At the General Prosecutor’s Office, they refused to comment yesterday on the defence’s actions. The investigators are hoping that the lawyers’ appeals will be dismissed and the Swiss accounts of the figures in the YUKOS affair will be arrested. As Kommersant reported earlier, operations on these accounts have been temporarily suspended by the Swiss Prosecutor General’s Office, which notified its Russian colleagues in writing that it would have to release the accounts if it did not receive an additional application for legal assistance from the Russian office in the shortest possible time.
Kommersant will continue to follow the YUKOS affair.
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The Representative Sets the Lawyer Straight
Pavel Laptev, Russia’s representative at the European Court of Human Rights, yesterday denied statements by lawyer Robert Amsterdam that the court had agreed to consider the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon lebedev, and Aleksei Pichugin. The Financial Times had earlier reported on the European Court’s agreement, with reference to Mr. Amsterdam but without official comments from the court in Strasbourg.
“This information is contrary to fact. I think Mr. Amsterdam isn’t fully up on the European Court’s rules of procedure,” Mr. Laptev told Interfax yesterday. He explained that consideration of a case there is preceded by several stages, the first being “to communicate with the authorities of the country indicated in the corresponding complaint; there has been no communication with respect to Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, and Pichugin.” “Therefore, to say that the European Court has agreed to consider the so-called YUKOS affair is incorrect, to put it mildly.”
In his words, the court has only requested information on Platon Lebedev’s health; “however, this is not a communication but a preliminary investigation of the circumstances.” Mr. Laptev went on to say that the Russian side has already given an official response to this request, and an independent medical examination has already determined that “Lebedev is able to take part in investigative or legal actions.” He noted that back in January, one of Mr. Lebedev’s lawyers had requested the European Court to oblige the Russian authorities to release his client from prison for health reasons. “However, the European Court left the lawyer’s request unsatisfied,” the Russian representative said.
Materials Written by Platon Lebedev Seized
There was another scandal yesterday involving the lawyer of one of the figures in the YUKOS affair. We recall that on November 11, 2003, Olga Artyukhova, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, was searched at the special ward of the Department of Corrections (GUIN) right after visiting him. As she was leaving the building, ward officers seized a note from her that GUIN officials claimed contained “instructions to counteract the investigation by influencing participants in the criminal procedure who were at liberty.” Yesterday, the briefcase and coat of lawyer Evgeny Baru were searched in the same way as he was leaving Matrosskaya Tishina Prison, where he had met with his client, Pavel Lebedev. Mr. Baru told Kommersant that prison officials, who included the warden, had confiscated written and printed materials from the attorney’s file from his briefcase, including materials written by Mr. Lebedev. Yesterday evening, Evgeny Baru reported on “the infringement of the professional rights of Genri Resnik, chairman of the Moscow Bar Association. GUIN’s official reaction to the incident is expected today. It is not inconceivable that they will try to threaten Evgeny Baru with expulsion from the Bar Association, as they previously did to Olga Artyukhova, for attempting to “pass a note from Lebedev to the outside.” We note that the Bar Association refused to disbar Ms. Artyukhova, and the dispute between the Ministry of Justice and the lawyers will now go to court.
Ekaterina Zapodinskaya
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 23, 2004
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