Even the cream of Russia’s penitentiary service, the flower of the State’s militocracy, can make a mistake once in a while. However, the dramatic error committed yesterday by the Siberian bureaucratic management, which allowed Neil Buckley of the Financial Times to conduct the first major interview in years with Russia’s most well known political prisoner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sets a new benchmark among the fiascos of this case. Given the appearance, one would think that this series of stories and feature interview were planned far in advance. In fact, that’s not at all how it happened. According to my sources, there was a slight mix-up at the courthouse in Chita, and where the attendees are usually registered and allowed (or denied) entrance, Buckley breezed right through undetected. Some local bureaucrats, perhaps unaware he was with the Financial Times (Buckley speaks Russian), accidentally left the reporter alone in the courtroom with Khodorkovsky, even permitting what I believe is the first new photograph we have seen of him in many months. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gulag took in a couple new occupants following this mistake. So either by serendipity or a colossal blunder, Khodorkovsky had the rare opportunity to speak his mind in an encounter with the international press.