Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

Excerpt from Russia Country Report:

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

"Human rights organizations and activists identified the following individuals as political prisoners: Zara Murtazaliyeva, Valentin Danilov, Igor Sutyagin, Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, Platon Lebedev, and Svetlana Bakhmina. All were still imprisoned at year's end."

"Mikhail Khodorkovskiy and Platon Lebedev continued to serve eight-year prison sentences following their 2005 convictions for fraud, tax evasion, and embezzlement. On July 16, Khodorkovskiy's lawyers filed for parole, and on August 22, a district court in Chita denied his request on the grounds that he had not admitted his guilt and repented and that he had violated prison rules, such as sharing food with other prisoners. Some viewed the latter as a pretext for the decision. Khodorkovskiy's and Lebedev's appeals of their convictions in the country's courts were rejected in November 2007 and were pending at the ECHR at year's end.

In late June, after more than a year of investigation, prosecutors filed new charges against Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev for money laundering and tax evasion, which could extend their imprisonment up to 15 years. In October, prison authorities placed Khodorkovskiy in solitary confinement for 10 days for giving an interview to Esquire magazine, a punishment that the Ingondinsky Court in November found to be illegal. Also in October the Chita Regional Court rejected an appeal by Khodorkovskiy's lawyers against an August decision by a lower court to refuse parole. In December, the district court granted investigators' request to extend the defendants' pretrial detention to March 2009.

Both Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev remained in a prison in Chita Oblast (3,000 miles from Moscow) despite appeals that sending them to prison in an area different from where they lived or were sentenced violated the law. In July 2007, the criminal code was amended, allowing convicts to be sent to any other region of the country, no longer just to "another nearest-neighbor." In October the Supreme Court ruled that Khodorkovskiy's detention in Chita was legal. The arrest and conviction of Khodorkovskiy raised concerns about the right to due process and the rule of law, including the independence of courts and the lack of a predictable tax regime. Some observers believed that, despite the possibility that the charges against Khodorkovskiy may have had some merit, he was selectively targeted for prosecution because of his politically oriented activities and as a warning to other oligarchs against involvement in political or civil society issues or providing financial support to independent civil society.

In December, former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina failed to receive early parole despite a high-profile campaign to secure her release on humanitarian grounds. In April 2006, Bakhmina was convicted of tax evasion and embezzlement and sentenced to seven years in prison, which was reduced on appeal to six-and-a-half years. At the time of the campaign for her release, she had served over half of her sentence, which commonly enables a prisoner to apply for parole. Several organizations expressed concern about reports regarding Bakhmina's lack of access to her children while in custody. Some human rights groups considered Bakhmina a political prisoner and claimed that she was being held in an attempt to pressure Dmitriy Gololobov, her former boss at Yukos, to return from London."

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

"In 2006, the Russian Federal Tax Service filed a tax claim against the Center for International Legal Defense, an NGO headed by one of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskiy's lawyers, after it was audited by tax inspectors. During the year, the center continued to be targeted for harassment, including irregular administrative inspections."

Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights

"The government subjected the Center for International Legal Defense (CILD), which was headed by one of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskiy's lawyers, to irregular administrative inspections. In a note to Ombudsman Lukin, CILD complained about a January 2007 visit to their office by an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Tax Offenses Department in Moscow. The officer questioned the center's director and deputy director about CILD's activities and asked if they worked on any Chechen cases. Later in the month, the officer visited CILD with orders summoning the executives to the Tax Offenses Department. In 2006 the Federal Tax Service filed a claim against CILD after it was audited by tax inspectors; the center appealed the claim. The tax claims and fines against CILD amounted to approximately $170,000 (approximately 4.6 million rubles), which if collected could potentially put the NGO out of business."