By Robert Amsterdam | Published: April 7, 2009
During the Tuesday hearings at the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Moscow, we are expecting for the defendant to make a few major announcements of urgent importance to the news media following this case.
I will share the complete statement as soon as Khodorkovsky has the opportunity to present it in court, but I expect his comments to include the following:
- He will claim that the charges have not been explained to him properly. In his own words, “I was completely deprived of the right prescribed by Art.47 (4.1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, – to know what I have been charged with.”
- Drawing parallels with previous judges and previous verdicts, he will argue to Judge Danilkin that this case poses an important dilemma: “In general, your position is not enviable. On the one hand – the clear position of our country’s President to «judge by the law». On the other – a whole underground inter-agency commission: how to bend a judge and his immediate superiors towards a guilty verdict.”
- Given that the prosecutor’s case has failed to even describe the crime they claim was committed, meaning that a not guilty verdict is even “beyond their worst dreams.”
- Among other messages directed toward the president and prime minister, Khodorkovsky is expected to ask that “the court will understand that it is a court, and not a cheap instrument for raiders and corruptioneers”.