As many readers are well aware, yesterday Judge Viktor Danilkin of the Khamovniki District Court in Moscow concluded pre-trial hearings against the political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky by rejecting all appeal motions brought by the defense to stay proceedings.  The judge did see it fit, however, to accept the only appeal presented by prosecutors to keep the defendants in custody throughout the trial.

This second show trial of Khodorkovsky is markedly different from the first, perhaps most importantly by the fact that no one is bothering to defend the obvious lack of merit in the state’s case.  As was highlighted in the summary of our appeal for dismissal, the “new” charges against Khodorkovsky are so preposterous and implausible, and the process so severely flawed, that one can’t help but be struck by the generalized disrespect and hostility toward the institution of law and justice shown by the prosecutors.

As my colleague in Moscow, lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant, has told the press, the state’s claims against the prisoner “could only be dreamed up in some very elaborate fantasy.”  Indeed Khodorkovsky is formerly accused of embezzling a staggering 350 million tonnes of crude oil – the equivalent of the company’s entire oil production over a period of six years without PricewaterhouseCoopers, independent auditers, or other shareholders in Russia’s most transparent corporation taking notice.  It is an accusation akin to blaming him for the great Chicago fire of 1871, the Stalinist purges of 1937-1938, and Sept. 11, 2001 all at once … such insane allegations would carry about the same level of evidence and mere possibility:  none.