The court read all of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (right) and Platon Lebedev's (right) acts, but has still not said how long their sentences will be
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Sentencing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky Delayed
// For at least a day
The YUKOS affair
Yesterday the Meshchansky Court finished reading the verdict in the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, and Andrey Krainov. The evidence of Krainov's guilt was read. Then the judges proceeded to the exclusion of evidence of the parties in the case. But the court didn't get to the findings of the verdict.
It was very difficult to get into the session of the Meshchansky Court yesterday. Quite a few journalists were left behind the metal barricades at the entrance to the courthouse. Police pushed media representatives away from the cordon to keep them from getting in. In the heat of the moment, even Denis Diatlev, one of the lawyers for the accused, had a run-in with the police, who didn't want to let him in either until bailiffs arrived to settle the affair.
Meanwhile, reading of the verdict continued in the courtroom. Yesterday, the judges read the evidence confirming the guilt of the third accused – Andrey Krainov, the former head of AOZT Volna. Recall that, according to the investigation, Krainov fraudulently acquired 22.8 billion nondenominated rubles from the budget of Volgograd Region and caused damage to this region's budget amounting to 53.2 billion nondenominated rubles. These 76 billion rubles had been allocated from the budget to construct housing for armed forces personnel and a bridge across the Volga. But “members of a criminal group”, who set up what were “actually front companies” controlled by YUKOS, received this money in their accounts by means of complex mutual settlements and “registration of fictitious debts”. The court agreed with the prosecution's arguments. “Krainov and members of the organized criminal group devised and implemented a scheme to siphon off state funds and carried out financial manipulations by means of bill transactions,” the court read. As the court noted, in particular, it was proven that Krainov recorded the scheme for “fraudulent acquisition of funds” on pages from Bank MENATEP's weekly publication. Then later, “in order to hide the traces of the crime”, a company called Aval, controlled by Krainov, among others, which had received the named amount, was liquidated. “The court considers the arguments of Krainov's lawyer about the legality of the deal to be farfetched and Krainov's arguments that he was under the control of YUKOS's managers to be unfounded, since the case documents testify to his authority,” the court decided. Thus, the court considered Krainov's guilt in this episode to be fully proven, and his actions corresponded to Articles 159 and 165 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“Fraud” and “Causing damage by means of fraud”, respectively). The court omitted the episode of Krainov's activities as head of Volna, which acquired a 20-percent package of Apatit shares. As Kommersant has already reported, it was assumed that this case would be closed due to expiry of the statute of limitations.
After reading its position on Krainov, for whom the prosecution had requested a suspended sentence, the court declared a short recess. Several participants in the proceedings and observers expected that after the break, the judges would express their opinion of the Apatit episode and finally pass sentence on Krainov. But the judges began to state their position on the inadmissibility of the evidence presented by the parties. In the opinion of the court, this included specialists' conclusions presented by the defence. “The defence did not have the right to gather evidence by turning to specialists. The rights and responsibilities of these people were not explained to them, and they were given incorrect documents to study. These people gave legal evaluations, including on the guilt or innocence of the accused, which is also illegal. The relatives consulted specialists, but gathering evidence is not within their competence,” the court read. The court also declared several documents presented by lawyers during the trial inadmissible evidence.
On the other hand, the court did not agree to declare as inadmissible evidence some that the defence had petitioned for. For example, the court found the searches at Bank MENATEP and the office of lawyer Anton Drel legal, and consequently, their results were admissible. The search of Drel's office, for example “was not conducted on the lawyer himself, but in an office, and the law enforcement agencies learned it was a lawyer's office only in the course of the search,” the court said. And errors in compiling the documents during the search were only “technical errors of the investigators”. These statements of the court caused a buzz in the room. “You get the impression that this entire court is one big technical error,” some people present at the reading said later.
The room became hot, both from the sweltering heat and the general nervousness. The nearly 60 people, who were crammed onto the wooden benches, were waiting for the court to turn to the most important thing – the operative part of the verdict. Some people wiped their faces with handkerchiefs; others in the back rows were swallowing valerian [a mild tranquilizer]. But their hopes were dashed. Presiding Judge Irina Kolesnikova unexpectedly broke off the reading. It will continue today, and it is still unclear whether Tuesday will be the final day of this long-drawn-out process.
Marina Lepina
All the Article in Russian as of May 31, 2005
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