The Prisons

Moved To Prison Colonies

On June 21, 2011, Marina Khodorkovsky recieved notification from the Federal Penitentiary Service that her son has arrived in the Segezha FBU IR-7 penal colony in the Karelia Region.

Segezha City, where the colony is located is on the west coast of Lake Vygozero, on the route of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. The 227 km canal was built in 20 months by prisoners of Stalin's gulags. Some estimates suggest that up to 100,000 people died constructing the canal.

Human-rights activists said the choice of IK-7 appeared to violate Russian prison laws, which call for convicts to serve their sentences as close as possible to home - Moscow, in Khodorkovsky's case. Prison officials haven't commented on the choiceKhodorkovsky's partner and co-defendant.

IK-7 opened in 1968, but the Segezha region has a rich penitentiary history since it lies along the Belomorkanal, the Baltic-White Sea Canal built at a cost of tens of thousands of gulag prisoners' lives in the early 1930s under Josef Stalin.Russian media reports say the camp is known as a "red zone" - one under the tight control of prison authorities. Photos on the prison website show a mural with the words "The law is harsh but it's the law!" and a Russian Orthodox church built in 2008. According to the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Republic of Karelia, the colony can hold 1342 people.

At the time Khodorkovsky was transported to the colony media reported all staff of the IK-7 camp were strictly prohibited from giving any information whatsoever to the media and prison chiefs were been summoned to the UFSIN administration in Petrozavodsk and forced to sign a written non-disclosure pledge.

The daily schedule for inmates consists of a seven hour work day, eight hours sleep and one hour of personal time. Khodorkovsky has been assigned to work in "life-support of the camp's activity". But, in principle, they could employ him at something else as well.

Platon Lebedev is currently in a pre-trial detention center in Arkhangelsk, where he will stay at least until June 24, 2011. Lebedev's lawyer Yelena Liptser told Media:

"We found Platon Lebedev in a pre-trial detention center in the city of Arkhangelsk, from which a videoconference scheduled for Friday will be held with the Moscow City Court on the consideration of his appeal against extensions of detention"

Liptser said Lebedev was transferred to the pre-trial detention center from Penal Colony 14 in the Arkhangelsk Region's city of Velsk in northwestern Russia. She added that she does not know which jail Lebedev will complete his term in prison.

On December 30, 2010, Judge Victor Danilkin sentenced Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev to a total term of 13 years and 6 months, with a final sentence of 14 years, which is exactly what the prosecution requested. The sentence will be counted from October 2003, meaning that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will remain in jail until 2017. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will remain in Matrosskaya Tishina prison until the verdict is in force.

From Prison Colonies To Moscow

On February 24, 2009, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were moved to Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina Detention Facility to face trial on new charges.

Chita & Kharp

From mid-October 2005 to December 2006 Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev served their prison sentences in the remote labor penal colonies of Krasnokamensk FGU IK-10 in Eastern Siberia and Kharp 0G 98/3 in the Arctic Circle, respectively.

From December 2006 and until their journey to Moscow for the new trial, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were held in Chita pre-trial detention facility No. 1 (IZ-75/1) in connection with the new allegations brought against them on February 5, 2007 (as amended on June 30, 2008). This is in violation of Russian law which requires that an investigation take place in the region where the alleged crimes were committed or where the suspect is located, which in this case could not be Chita. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were first brought to Chita from their prison camps, and only then presented with the new charges against them. Such a move would allow the investigators to designate Chita, Siberia, as the venue for further investigation, in circumvention of the legal requirement.

Chita IZ-75/1 was the subject of criticism by the Moscow Helsinki Group which, in 2003, reported poor conditions and severe overcrowding among inmates, where 60-80 people were being held in cells meant to hold 10-20. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were held on the territory of so-called post No. 13 of FBU IZ 75/1 of the Office of the Federal Penitential Service (UFSIN) of the Russian Federation for Trans-Baikal Krai. An entire floor, specially refurbished and outfitted prior to the arrival of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev there, had been allocated in an old residential building.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were not taken to ordinary investigative offices: all meetings with the lawyers and family members also took place on the territory of post No. 13. In order for a defense lawyer to meet with Khodorkovsky or Lebedev, he or she had to obtain a permit from the Chief of the Detention Facility (SIZO) (if he is absent, the "special" person from the UFSIN or Deputy Chief has to be sought). The lawyers were accompanied to the territory of post No. 13 by guards. The corridors and cells (including the investigative offices, which are also located there) had video cameras installed, and Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were under 24-hour video surveillance. Meetings with their lawyers took place under surveillance by video camera, as well as by one or several guards of post No. 13, who observed the investigative office through the door glass. This past summer, the air conditioner in the investigative office broke down; the window would also not open since it was also "broken down," and therefore the working conditions were unacceptable for the work of the defense. Prior to meeting with the client, the lawyers had to produce all the things they had with them for visual inspection and go through a metal detector.

Although prosecutors officially designated Chita, the case has really been administered from Moscow. All key procedural decisions were taken in Moscow and case-related documents had been signed there and then transmitted to Chita. It is clear that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were simply being isolated thousands of kilometers away, in a place that had no connection with the activities under investigation. This significantly restricted their participation in the investigatory process and complicated communications with their defense counsel who had to travel thousand miles away from Moscow to meet with their clients.

Furthermore, by continuing to hold Khodorkovsky and Lebedev for more than two years in pre-trial detention units, first in Chita and now at the pre-trial detention prison in Moscow, the prosecution changed their regime of incarceration from the more flexible conditions of a prison colony to the harsher conditions and smaller jail cells of pre-trial detention.

Treating them for so long as criminal suspects under arrest allowed the prosecutor to hold them behind “double bars,” effectively isolating Khodorkovsky and Lebedev far more than if they were serving their sentences in a prison colony. In pre-trial detention, they are kept in more isolated environment, deprived of exercise and fresh air and are permitted minimal family visits.

In response to the prosecution’s motion to extend Khodorkovsky and Lebedev’s arrest for the duration of the upcoming trial, the defense argued that under Russian law, when prisoners are under investigation for new allegations or attend trial, they are to continue to serve their existing sentence as stipulated by the court’s verdict. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev should have been serving their sentences in appropriate prison colonies. In fact, the Matrosskaya Tishina Detention Facility has a special bloc designed for inmates who served time in prison colonies and now face trial in Moscow. However, they are being held in a pre-trial detention unit where the conditions are far more severe and inhumane.