Prosecution Attempts to Disqualify Another Defense Specialist
Today the prosecution moved to disqualify the second defense specialist of the day, Laura Russell Hardin, as a specialist in economic consulting who had been invited to explain the economic purposes behind several complex promissory notes transactions described in the indictment.
Before hearing Hardin's testimony, prosecutor Lakhtin asked for her disqualification as her "incompetence is obvious". Speaking in her own defense, Hardin told the court that it was her desire to assist the court, prosecutors and defense in helping to examine some of the charges and to analyze the transactions which are standard for a large vertical company, in Russia and abroad. Contrary to prosecutor Lakhtin statement, she confirmed that she never had a single client or a court find her knowledge of Russian accounting standards inadequate.
Also confirming the importance of hearing Hardin's testimony, Platon Lebedev informed the court that, unlike what Lakhtin thinks, Hardin is not an attorney and was not invited to give testimony on Russian corporate law. He reminded the court that there were about 20 pages in the indictment concerning operations between international companies within YUKOS' consolidation perimeter that Hardin's testimony would be relevant to.