Courtroom Report: February 4, 2010
Today's hearing was bookended by Mr. Lebedev's motion and statement. In between, without their witness, prosecutors read interrogation transcripts and responded to Mr. Lebedev's motion for the exclusion of all transcripts from interrogations conducted by investigator Nikandrov.
As the trial resumed, Mr. Lebedev filed a motion to obtain from Investigative Committee the full version of the March 29, 2005, transcript of Ms. Timoshenko's interrogation. As Mr. Lebedev pointed out, Ms. Timoshenko affirmed all of her testimony, but with a transcript of an almost 3 hour long interrogation containing an excerpt of an answer to one question, no one knows what Ms. Timoshenko was affirming. Prior to making his demand, Mr. Lebedev pointedly highlighted to the court the fact that OOO Ratmir paid taxes on sales, which ran counter to the indictment allegations of embezzlement and money laundering.
Judge Danilkin informed the parties that the witness who was scheduled to testify, Ms. Alla Karaseva, mailed the court a letter stating that she would not be able to attend due to medical reasons. The prosecution immediately filed for reading Ms. Karaseva's interrogation transcripts.
After examining Ms. Karaseva's letter, the defense objected on several grounds. Mr. Klyuvgant argued that Ms. Karaseva's medical condition may improve and since the defense would undoubtedly have questions based on the transcripts, it would be entirely appropriate for the court to postpone the decision on her transcripts for the time being. Procedurally, 7 out of 8 transcripts were from interrogation of Ms. Karaseva as a suspect in another case. In addition, all interrogations took place after the investigation into Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev's case was concluded.
Mr. Lakhtin argued that the defense was willing to subject Ms. Karaseva to inhumane treatment, bordering on torture, and that Ms. Karaseva's testimony was "legalized" by Basmanny Court. Replying, Mr. Lebedev explained to the court that neither he nor Mr. Khodorkovsky were aware of Ms. Karaseva's case and could not offer their testimony at her secret trial. Addressing Mr. Lakhtin's "inhumane treatment" remark, Mr. Lebedev reminded that Mr. Lakhtin was the supervising prosecutor during Mr. Aleksanyan's investigation.
After the court granted their motion, the prosecution spent the rest of the morning session reading Ms. Karaseva's transcripts. Ms. Karaseva, who was tried and convicted for fraud by facilitating illegal refunds for overpaid taxes, was questioned on several companies registered in zones with preferential tax treatments and on her interactions with several SP RTT and YUKOS-FBC employees, including Mss. Golub and Kuchusheva and Messrs. Anilionis, Kraynov, Kartashov and others. Several interrogations focused on circumstances surrounding her staying on Cyprus and in Ukraine, prior to returning to Russia in 2007. [After her return, Ms. Karaseva was arrested, placed into Matrosskaya Tishina SIZO and was tried in a closed proceeding with special procedures. She was given a suspended sentence of five and a half years, with four years probation. -Eds.]
In the afternoon, the prosecution responded to Mr. Lebedev's motion concerning investigator Nikandrov. Mr. Lakhtin argued that there was no conflict between Mr. Nikandrov's roles as participating witness and an investigator, because both happened in a different case. Mr. Lakhtin argued that all interrogations took place under case #18/41-03, which was different than Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev's case.
Mr. Lebedev's motion was denied.
Mr. Khodorkovsky pointed out to the court that not one of the prosecution's witnesses discussed issues connected with the substance of the charges - the physical movement of crude oil. Instead, their witnesses talk of revenues and profits from transactions by "the so-called victims." In addition, testimony about YUKOS and the victims making profits destroyed the concept of damages. Mr. Khodorkovsky told the court that he was left with a feeling that the prosecution, after realizing it had lost in this process, is attempting to fabricate another criminal case and is using the courtroom as an interrogation room for a preliminary investigation. "Since they don't know what else to accuse me of, they are looking for it in this courtroom," Mr. Khodorkovsky explained to the court.
Mr. Lebedev made a brief statement, first pointing out to the court that Ms. Karaseva's transcripts were about "tax episodes," which were tried in Meschanskiy Court, meaning Mr. Khodorkovsky and he were being re-tried. Mr. Lebedev, echoing Mr. Khodorkovsky, told the court that the indictment contained many of these "poisoned pills" - dormant allegations without charges. According to Mr. Lebedev, either the issue was the embezzlement of crude oil, or Mr. Khodorkovsky was correct in his suspicion that the courtroom was being used as an interrogation room for witnesses for some other criminal case.
The trial will resume on Monday, February 8, 10:30 Moscow Time.