The Prisons
On June 21, 2011, Khodorkovsky's family received notification from the Federal Penitentiary Service that Russia's most famous prisoner had arrived at his current place of detention: the Segezha FBU IR-7 penal colony in the Karelia Region, bordering Finland in Russia's north.
The town of Segezha, where the colony is located, is on the west coast of Lake Vygozero, on the route of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. The 227-kilometer canal was built in 20 months by prisoners of Stalin's gulags. According to official figures, over 10,000 prisoners died during construction of the canal, although some estimates suggest that up to 100,000 people lost their lives.
The choice of this remote prison colony for Khodorkovsky violated Russian prison laws, which call for convicts to serve their sentences as close as possible to home - which would be Moscow, in Khodorkovsky's case.
Inmates at the Segezha FBU IR-7 penal colony are assigned to work daily seven-hour shifts in the plastics shop, wood shop, metal workshop or the prison farm. RIA-Novosti reported that Khodorkovsky's initial assignment was to a maintenance team repairing toilets and windows.
Platon Lebedev was sent to Penal Colony 14 in Velsk, in the Arkhangelsk Region, adjacent to Karelia. Like Khodorkovsky, Lebedev will be assigned to a regime of prison labor.
Chita & Kharp
From mid-October 2005 to December 2006 Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev served their 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 until their eventual journey to Moscow for trial on the new charges, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were held in Chita pre-trial detention facility No. 1 (IZ-75/1). This was in clear 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, i.e. a way for prosecutors to circumvent the legal requirement to take Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to Moscow.
Chita IZ-75/1 was criticized 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 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.
During the investigation, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were not taken to ordinary investigative offices: all meetings with lawyers and family members, which were strictly controlled by the authorities, also took place on the territory of post No. 13.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were under 24-hour video surveillance: corridors and cells (including the investigative offices) had video cameras installed. Meetings with their lawyers took place under video surveillance and were observed by one or more guards. Working conditions were harsh for the defense team; for instance, air conditioning units broke down during the hot summer months and windows in the investigative office could not be opened. Prior to meetings with their clients, defense lawyers had to produce for visual inspection all items on their person and go through a metal detector.
Although Chita was officially designated as the location of the investigation, all key procedural decisions were taken in Moscow and case-related documents were 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 defense counsel who had to travel thousands of kilometers in order 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 from February 2009 at the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention facility in Moscow, the authorities were able to impose markedly harsher conditions and smaller jail cells of pre-trial detention, as opposed to the more flexible conditions of a prison colony.
Treating Khodorkovsky and Lebedev for so long as criminal suspects under arrest allowed the authorities to hold them behind "double bars," effectively isolating them far more than if they were serving their sentences in a prison colony. In pre-trial detention, they were more isolated, deprived of exercise and fresh air and permitted only minimal family visits.
As prosecutors repeatedly had Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's pre-trial detention extended throughout the duration of their second trial, from 2009 to 2011, the defense argued that, under Russian law, when a prisoner is facing new allegations or attending trial, they are to continue to serve their existing sentence as stipulated by the existing court 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, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were held in a pre-trial detention unit throughout the trial, where the conditions were far more severe and inhumane.