Weekly Report of Trial Proceedings: December 21 – December 25, 2009
A major development this week was a ruling by the Presidium of Russia's Supreme Court, based on a decision by the European Court of Human Rights, finding that Mr. Lebedev's arrest in July of 2003 was illegal. Announcing its ruling after a hearing on December 23, the Presidium ruled that Mr. Lebedev was detained illegally from March 31 to April 6 in 2004. The decisions of the Basmanny and Meschansky Courts and subsequent appellate decisions affirming the courts of first instance were overturned. However, the Presidium refused to consider additional violations defense attorneys Liptser and Krasnov brought to the Presidium's attention, including violations committed during the course of Mr. Lebedev's appeals of the aforementioned decisions of the Basmanny and Meschanskiy Courts up to and including Russia's Supreme Court. Mr. Lebedev, who was brought to the hearing despite voicing his unwillingness to participate on short notice, told the presiding judges that their report on the circumstances surrounding his initial arrest was incomplete - all of the Criminal Code violations he was alleged to have committed and that were used by investigation to argue for his arrest were later dropped or dismissed. Thus, in addition to procedural violations, there was no substantive basis for his arrest.
The prosecution's witness failed to show on Monday. Instead of letting the defense attorneys spend the next several days preparing for Wednesday's hearing before the Presidium of Russia's Supreme Court, Mr. Lakhtin chose to use the occasion to give the court and the opposing side a lecture on what he thought of the defendants' commentary on the prosecution's usage of "fictitious persons," "fictitious companies" and other similar terminology. In a rambling and almost hour-long statement, Mr. Lakhtin sought to touch on everything - from business customs to a dictionary. Afterwards, Mr. Khodorkovsky quickly explained the failed premise of Mr. Lakhtin's lecture, while the defense expressed indignation at Mr. Lakhtin's cynical tactic to delay the defense from preparing for Wednesday's hearing. The result was a warning from Judge Danilkin that the court will no longer tolerate commentary, similar to Mr. Lakhtin's, on the opposing side's statements and vowed to cut them short if the parties do not heed his warning.
Two witnesses testified on Thursday. Mr. Dmitry Nesterov, former deputy director of department of petroleum products exports at Yukos-RM, told the court that one of the reasons he left Yukos-RM was because he did not feel comfortable signing petroleum sales contracts on behalf of the company. While he did not feel pressured by anyone, Mr. Nesterov believed that signing these contracts was above his employment rank. His testimony suggested that he would not have had any concerns about signing contracts if he was promoted or was paid a higher salary. On cross-examination, Mr. Nesterov testified that during the time he worked at YUKOS he never heard of the company being charged with any export violations. Further, YUKOS always had petroleum products to satisfy all contracts it entered into. Otherwise the company would have been subject to various penalties.
Ms. Alla Kashirina, former financial director of YUKOS-M and Yukos Export Trade, as well as director of OOO "Spray," testified in the afternoon. Ms. Kashirina's in-court testimony was in many ways similar to other former witnesses who testified that they did not know the substance of the documents they were signing, but felt comfortable doing so based on approval seals from accounting and legal departments. On cross-examination, Ms. Kashirina admitted that her statements about YUKOS-M and "illegal tax breaks" and "tax evasion scheme" were based on what she learned from various news sources and was not based on any first-hand knowledge, as was most of the information she knew about the case that investigator Kuzmenko was questioning her about. Later in the hearing she would admit that she did not know why she told Mr. Kuzmenko that YUKOS-M "purchased crude oil on paper only."
Thursday's hearing was punctuated by frequent interruptions from Mr. Lakhtin. These resulted in several high-volume exchanges between Messrs. Lebedev and Lakhtin. At the end of the hearing, Judge Danilkin asked Mr. Lebedev to refrain from making certain remarks which he considered disrespectful to the court. While accepting Judge Danilkin's admonition, Mr. Lebedev reminded the court that not a single reprimand was issued in the 10 months since the start of the trial.
The only witness to testify on Friday was Mr. Andrei Orlov, managing director of ZAO NORSI TRIA. For a brief period in 2002 Mr. Orlov's company purchased crude oil from OOO Ratibor. That crude oil came from Yuganskneftegaz and was delivered to NORSI at Yuganskneftegaz's counter node. Mr. Orlov described transactions between his company and Ratibor as not being anything out of the ordinary. On cross-examination, Mr. Orlov admitted that he did not know about the substance of the criminal case for which he was interrogated. Questioned by Messrs. Lebedev and Khodorkovsky, Mr. Orlov explained in easily understood terms how crude oil was transferred and why no company paid Rotterdam prices for crude oil purchased from a production company based in Khanty-Mansiysk, like Yuganskneftegaz. According to Mr. Orlov, Urals crude in Rotterdam cost several times more than it did at a count node in Khanty-Mansiysk due to the numerous expenses involved in processing, storage and transportation.
The trial will resume on Monday, December 28, 11:00 Moscow Time.