Statement

Yesterday, Wednesday 8 October, our client was sent to the punishment cell for 12 days. This took place seven days before the appeal against the refusal to grant Mikhail Khodorkovsky release on parole was due to be heard.

The pretext for this latest punishment is the publication in Esquire.

The decision of the director of the Chita pre-trial detention centre is knowingly and self-evidently unlawful. The law “On the detention in custody of persons accused or suspected of committing crimes” and the internal regulations of pre-trial detention centres prohibit the despatch or receipt of letters by the prisoner, other than through procedures established by these documents. However, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has not written or received any “unlawful” letters, i.e. there is no evidence to confirm that he has infringed this prohibition.

The prisoner does have a right to unlimited access to his defence lawyers who, in turn, may read him any documents, and write down any of his words, that they consider necessary for the defence. All of that lies beyond the competence of the administration of the pre-trial detention centre and cannot be classified as a violation of established procedures by the prisoner. A high-ranking official in the Federal Penitentiary Service (FPS) admitted as much in an interview with Novoye vremya magazine in 2004 after the first such publication. Since then there have been dozens of such publications.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky has thus, once again, fallen victim to the blatantly unlawful actions of staff of the Chita Region FPS, which contradict not only normative acts now in force but also the publicly expressed position of their own superiors.

The punishment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky for non-existent violations just before judicial hearings to consider his release on parole has become a bad tradition established by the prison administration.

Our assessment of the reasons for such behaviour coincides with a number of formulations of the RF Criminal Code. It will be presented in a statement to the Investigative Committee, requiring that a criminal case be opened. It will also be presented in declarations to the Prosecutor General's office and the RF Ministry of Justice, requiring that the reasons for an entire series of similar suspicious and discriminatory actions against Khodorkovsky be investigated.

We hope that those bodies will carry out an impartial investigation and halt the use of the authority and powers of FPS staff for purposes that violate the lawful rights of our client and run contrary to the interests of their own service.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s defence team
9 October 2008