Judge Danilkin Dismisses Yet Another Defense Specialist
UPDATE: Judge Danilkin has upheld the prosecution's motion to dismiss John Romanelli, despite the defense arguing against every point of the motion.
Romanelli defended his credentials in court as he came under attack from prosecutor Lakhtin. He informed that he traveled a long way to help the court and he had no doubt that he could bring knowledge on topics of relevance.
On Tuesday August 17, the prosecutors asked the court to dismiss specialist John Romanelli, an independent investment banking expert. He was supposed to comment on the circumstances around YUKOS's purchase of the Eastern Oil Company. The prosecutors said that he was not competent and that he would try to interpret the deal using the US legislation, they added that the witness was interested in the outcome of the case.
In response, Konstantin Rivkin, Platon Lebedev's lawyer, said that the expert was not going to talk about the legislative aspect of the structure of the deal at all.
Romanelli insisted that there could be no doubt that he could help the court to understand the transactions in question.