Big news today from Strasbourg. The European Court on Human Rights has admitted a complaint submitted by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, meaning that the court will hear arguments from the defense that his arrest, persecution, and trial by the Russian government has violated three Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.  Most importantly, the court rejected arguments from the Russian prosecutors denying the political motivation of his detention and trial. In addition to the ECHR’s past rulings on Platon Lebedev and the Dutch court’s Yukos ruling, this news really turns the pressure up on the authorities at a critical moment in the trial.

The full press release is available over at the Khodorkovsky Center:

The European Court of Human Rights has issued its Admissibility Decision on Khodorkovsky’s first application to the Strasbourg Court which was initially submitted in 2004. The Court comprehensively rejected the arguments of the Russian Federation that had sought to have the application ruled inadmissible. Instead the Court ruled that Khodorkovsky’s argument that there had been fundamental violations of his human rights raised “serious issues of fact and law under the Convention” which now must be considered for a final judgment.