The Khamovnichesky Court Circus

Sketch of the trial by artist Boris Zhutovsky, posted to Novaya Gazeta. 1. The defendants -- Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in a cell behind glass. The glass reflects the windows of the hall, therefore you can't see the guys. They interact with the defense through a little black door. 2. A little soldier/security guard. 3. The judge in black robe, wearing glasses. A boring little judge! 4. Little doors from which the judge comes out. And everybody stands up. 5. The Procuratorial Team. Piles and piles of little papers on the table. We read for hours at a time. The one in the middle does the reading. The two on the sides keep silent. 6. Bailiff-soldier. With a telephone and in a vest.

The procurators read out the case materials concerning this law firm like they were some kind of detective novel: slowly, highlighting the key points, with a hint of mystery in the voice.

Although, it must be said, there wasn't anything all that unusual in the actual documents: from them it followed, for example, that Pavel Ivlev had been a lawyer.

-- Here is what this signifies... -- procurator Lakhtin repeated yet again for some, -- that Ivlev had worked in the law firm of «Feldmans and partners». And that is what this signifies...
The hall began to laugh. Which did not impede the state prosecution from recounting exactly the same thing about other employees of the firm as well in the same kind of tragic voice. And when Lakhtin read out several contracts for the rendering of legal assistance, entered into between YUKOS and the firm, that's when the scandal occurred.

-- Your honor, we demand explanations, on what grounds documents that are the object of a lawyer's secret [attorney-client privilege] included in the materials of the criminal case? -- asked the lawyer Natalia Terekhova.

The procurators attempted not to notice the question, but after they had read out a «personal [bank] account statement» of "ALM Feldmans," absent in the case materials, even the judge could not endure it:

-- Just what are you reading, once and for all -- a document or your opinion in this regard?

-- asked judge Viktor Danilkin.

-- Um... This was my summary...

-- What does that mean, «summary»? Can you explain where you were following the document, and where your words, your comments were? -- the judge expressed interest most sharply.

-- Go on, keep on reading... -- procurator Ibragimova advised procurator Lakhtin in a whisper.

-- What's that supposed to mean, «keep on reading»?! -- Viktor Danilkin burst out angrily.

-- We haven't yet sorted out...

-- Your honor, -- answered Ibragimova, -- I'm saying that... because how the public...is laughing! And you're not reacting.

-- Well let 'em laugh! If the convoy [Khodorkovsky's guards--Trans.] deems it necessary, it will stop them.

In the end, the procurators were unable to explain where this document came from, and requested a recess. But even the recess didn't help. As if though forgetting about the scandal, Lakhtin announced that he was moving on to the reading out of the next volume, 72, skipping over 70 and 71.

-- That is, the question remains without an answer? -- the judge marvelled.
They did not answer him.

Day thirty-six

A series of paradoxes floated to the surface. All of the financial reports of the company being read out by the procurators concerned the years 2003--2004. But then Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were already found in detention, and this means they simply physically could not negotiate any transactions. However this paradox was not explained.

Looking no less remarkable was the interpretation by procurator Lahtin of the audit report of the company «PricewaterhouseCoopers» in relation to the financial activity of one of the subsidiary Cypriot companies of YUKOS. On one page of the report was said that «the company conducts financial reporting correctly», however on the next page -- just the opposite. «The company has a negative balance and causes loss to its parent company -- YUKOS»... Which of the conclusions can be believed -- the prosecutor did not clarify.

-- If «Pricewaterhouse» were to hear this translation of the document, it would withdraw its report back, -- the lawyer Krasnov couldn't resist in the course of the reading. -- The price of the shares comprises not 1.5 thousand dollars each, as the procurator has read out, but 1 dollar!

At the end of the day, Mikhail Khodorkovsky gave an assessment to the «researching of evidence» taking place in the court:

-- If we're talking about the transfer of rights to oil within YUKOS, then there are tonnes of such documents. Rights were transferred, and intra-corporate prices were applied, while the oil went through a pipe, as a rule, direct -- to the consumer through the state's pipe of «Transneft». It would be enough to question your choice of Putin, or Sechin, or Kudrin, or Khristenko -- each of them knows this. Ask the prosecutors to say, do they have evidence that the oil was seized from the pipe of the victim or from «Transneft's» pipe, into which the victim had surrendered it. If there is no such evidence, and there isn't, judging by the text of the bill of indictment, -- perhaps we'll stop wasting time and the state's money?

Day thirty-seven

-- ...I don't want any of your explanations! Just say yet again, which volumes!!!
Viktor Danilkin was yelling. For the first time. At procurator Go'lchehra Ibragimova. He gave the procurators five minutes for them to sort themselves out with volume No. 70, in which they had totally and completely entangled. But the procurators wasted the recess for naught, when it ended Go'lchehra Ibragimova announced that the next volumes would be read out.

-- ...Why didn't you say so in the first place?! -- the judge was irritated and announced yet another recess, in order to prepare himself.

Ibragimova once again immersed herself in the reading. On each volume of the case she spent less than a minute. She simply enumerated the names of documents contained in them and returned [them] to the judge with the parting words: "So there would be no remarks by the opponents, I propose to you to take a look at the volume yourself and consider it fully read out."

The defense and the defendants were shocked by such an approach. It appeared that the judge was -- too.

-- It is impossible to consider that which was not read out to have been read out! -- the lawyer Alexey Miroshnichenko was outraged.

But the judge kept silent and sullenly said to the procurators: "Continue." Soon a gloom was cast over the mood of the you-would-think rejoicing procurators by the lawyer Konstantin Rivkin. "A unique situation, -- he was saying -- took place with volume 77, read out by procurator Ibragimova. This volume was recognized by the Ingodinsky District Court of Chita as faulty from the point of view of the quality of the documents contained in it. In connection with this the investigation made a new copy of this volume and gave it the number 169. And having on hand the good-quality volume, the procurators have read out the faulty 77. A paradox."

Procurator Shokhin answered with yet another paradox: «The Constitution, providing for equality of arms, allows us to behave thus».

Day thirty-eight

...The whole day, the procuracy was reading out contracts for the purchase-sale of oil, as well as statements of receipt-transfer of that same oil from the seller to the purchaser. And the whole day, the defense was catching procurator Lakhtin omitting entire items, not indicating the prices of the acquired oil, making the financial picture of the transactions outlandish. ... But if Lakhtin gave the remarks a hostile reception, then Valentina Kovalikhina, to whom the baton was passed towards the end of the day, admitted her mistakes.

-- An absolutely fair remark, -- she agreed.

-- Valentina Mikhailovna, why don't we go through this here item one more time, something wasn't quite right there... -- asked her Platon Lebedev. And she would go through it again. The trial began to acquire features of respect of accusers and defendants for one another that had been so lacking in it. But, as bad luck would have it, the session this day was short -- Friday...

Lebedev only had time to declare that the state in the person of Rosimushchestvo [the State Property Committee of the Russian Federation--Trans.] is not the rightful victim and its representative must be removed from participation in the trial, because the shares in the subsidiary companies of the company VNK, of the embezzlement of which they are accusing him and Khodorkovsky, were found in the ownership specifically of VNK, and not of the state, and, consequently, no harm to the state could have been caused.

-- The recognition of Rosimushchestvo as a victim, -- added Khodorkovsky, -- is either a deliberate falsification, or -- so as not to curse, I'll make use of a phrase from the charge -- «evidence of the extreme limitedness of the person who signed it»...

Vera Chelishcheva

22.06.2009