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20 August 2008

On Thursday Khodorkovsky, his mother, his former cell-mate and his attorneys addressed the court

The Ingodinsky district court in Chita has announced yet another adjournment in its hearing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s parole application. It will resume the hearing again at 10 am on Friday, 22 August 2008, reports an Interfax-Siberia correspondent, direct from the courtroom.

“The administration of the Chita pre-trial detention centre was represented in court by its director Klyukin,” defence attorney Natalya Terekhova told our correspondent after the day’s proceedings were over. “He has not yet given his opinion, but merely presented a character reference for the court to consider. In particular, this says that Mikhail Khodorkovsky should spend more time, serving his sentence, in a general regime penal colony.”

Three testimonials from different prisons as to the character of Mr Khodorkovsky were presented in court. One was from the Matrosskaya Tishina remand centre in Moscow; a second from the penal colony in Krasnokamensk; the third from the Chita remand centre. They all refer to him as tactful, polite and proper in his dealings with the prison administration. At the same time, the Federal Penitentiary Service asserts that he cannot be released on parole and refers to some vaguely formulated reprimand received by Khodorkovsky in October 2007.

The administration of the Krasnokamensk penal colony considers that the former head of Yukos should serve his entire eight-year sentence in the colony. This view was expressed in the character reference, made public in court by Judge Igor Falileyev.

In the Chita remand centre reference it is said that Khodorkovsky had not wanted to reform: “Khodorkovsky did not take the path of penitence and would not admit his guilt.” The defence quoted this phrase from their client’s present place of detention and, at the same time, said that such conclusions are unlawful and are not based on the law.

Khodorkovsky is accused of not paying off debts of 62,000 roubles. His attorneys refuted this accusation and presented documents showing that the debt had been cleared. “To be frank, it seems rather cynical to deprive a man of his property and then demand that he clear a debt,” declared the defence.

On Thursday Judge Falileyev studied the case documentation and heard Marina Philippovna, Khodorkovsky’s mother and his former cellmate Gnezdilov. The latter announced in court that he had been forced to write two complaints about Khodorkovsky at the demand of the Chita remand centre administration.

“I was afraid that they would not let me out on parole. They insisted that I write those two reports. In the first I alleged that Khodorkovsky did not keep his hands behind his back when we went out to exercise. In they second I wrote that I did not see how he was holding his hands,” said Gnezdilov.

He told the court that he had then explained to Mikhail Khodorkovsky what he had done. Gnezdilov is convinced: “Khodorkovsky is a decent and honest man.” He also described the special surveillance installed to monitor Khodorkovsky’s cell. “Conditions of imprisonment in the cell I shared with Khodorkovsky are different to all others. It is under CCTV surveillance and I know there is also a video camera watching Platon Lebedev’s cell. Every 3-7 minutes the warder used to check on me, looking through the door. We were not allowed to read since my eyes could not then be observed. They knocked and demanded that my eyes be visible, in order to stop me sleeping. In an ordinary cell I could sleep whenever I wanted, and smoke when I wanted,” said Khodorkovsky’s former cellmate Gnezdilov.

Marina Philippovna, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s mother, told the court that her son had “from his childhood years always been a law-abiding individual and was brought up to love his country”. She went on: “He wasn’t a true oligarch but spent his money on educational projects. He used his own funds to set up a children’s home, which took in the small victims of the Beslan tragedy and is now ready to admit children who have suffered in the Ossetian events.”

Earlier the defence team specified that Khodorkovsky had received six reprimands. One in the Moscow remand centre; four in the Krasnokamensk penal colony; and one in the Chita remand centre. One offence referred to his failure to observe the rule that hands must be held behind the back during the exercise period. In court Mikhail Khodorkovsky himself told of a further two reprimands received on 18 August 2008. The first, in his words, was because he did not say how many people were in the cell (there were two people there). The second was when the drinking water container was found to have a dirty lid.

On Friday the court will continue to study the case materials, hear the remand centre representative and look at video recordings concerning the incident when Khodorkovsky was reprimanded for not keeping his hands behind his back.

(Interfax, 21.08.2008)