Lawyer Yuri Schmidt Comments on Khodorkovsky’s Newsweek Interview
Speaking to The St. Petersburg Echo, Mikhail Khodorkovsky's lawyer Yuri Schmidt discusses Khodorkovsky's interview with Newsweek:
"In his Russian Newsweek interview Mr Khodorkovsky has tried to make the court understand the absurdity of the charges brought against him. The trial has been proceeding according to a quite perverse scenario. They have not given my client a chance to testify. The court has no interest in uncovering the truth. Where justice is present and a court of law corresponds to its title the statements made by the accused are one of the most important pieces of evidence in any trial. In that situation the presumption of innocence is present in full measure. That principle has never operated in Russia's courts and in the case of Khodorkovsky you would have to prove his innocence more than a hundred times over - and even then I doubt it would influence the court's verdict."