New Khodorkovsky Trial Presents Test for Medvedev (Bloomberg)
"In this trial we're dealing with a president who has attacked the very legal nihilism that we identified in the first trial," Robert Amsterdam said in London today in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "Given that public stand of the Russian president, he has to be seen, and the government has to be seen, to comport with certain of the basics, at least, of what would appear to be fair process."
Arrests as Jailed Russian Tycoon Back in Court (Reuters)Police arrested 10 supporters shouting "freedom for political prisoners" as fallen Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky appeared in court on Tuesday on new charges of embezzlement and money laundering. (...)EU Observer Fears Unfair Khodorkovsky Trial (EU Business)
Armed guards brought Khodorkovsky, wearing jeans and carrying a black briefcase, in a van to the Khamovnichesky court in Moscow -- the first time he has appeared in public in the capital since 2005. A supporter threw white roses toward him.
A European Union legal observer said Tuesday there is "absolutely no reason" to believe that the second trial of Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be fair.
"The arbitrariness of the state's influence on the latest trial is clear," said former German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who has been assigned by the Council of Europe to observe the case.
(AP Photo)
Former Yukos CEO's Defenders Recuse Public Prosecutors (ITAR-TASS)
Former Yukos CEO's Defenders Recuse Public Prosecutors (ITAR-TASS)
awyers defending in the courtroom the former CEO of the defunct oil corporation Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the CEO of Yukos's financial vehicle MENATEP, Platon Lebedev, have recused two public prosecutors attending the hearings of a new criminal case against the two men at the Khamovniki district court in Moscow.
In an explanation for the move, Lebedev's defender Vladimir Krasnov told reporters he and other lawyers had recused the public prosecutors Valery Loktin and Dmitry Shokhin, since they knew the latter men's line of conduct at the previous hearings.
(Reuters Pictures)
Halfway through his Current Sentence, Khodorkovsky Faces New Charges (RFE/RL)
"For Medvedev, the situation is very interesting. Because while this is the second Khodorkovsky trial, it is the first one when Medvedev is president," Aleksandr Osovtsov, a member of the opposition group Solidarity, tells RFE/RL's Russian Service.
"This is a test of all his talk about how freedom is better than the lack of freedom, about making courts more independent," he adds. "It is a moment of truth."
