Prosecutors Finish Reading Charges in Khodorkovsky Trial

Day after day and hour after hour of the laborious reading aloud of the prosecution’s tome of absurd charges levied against Mikhail Khodorkovsky in this second trial, the state prosecutors today completed the initial reading.  Court has been adjourned until Monday, but it is still unclear if the prosecutors will take the step of reading aloud the 1,500 of evidence arguments in the case (some say that prosecutors appear to be stalling for time to receive a political order from above).

If they have finished on Monday, the defense will have the opportunity to present new motions and Khodorkovsky himself may have the opportunity to respond to the charges.

Here is part of the trial summary from over at the Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center, which has been posting excellent daily accounts … keeping up with this stream of reports is like stepping into the show trial itself.

The hearing resumed at 14:40. Konstantin Rivkin informed Judge Danilkin that he forgot to turn on the live feed into the press room. This is not the first time it had happened, and some members of the press, unable to enter the courtroom once the hearing resumed, have sent text messages to defense attorneys, informing them of what happened.

As before, Mr. Lakhtin continued to have difficulties with reading various foreign firm names, and several times had to take extended pauses, while Mr. Shokhin was feeding him the names letter by letter. At last, Mr. Lakhtin finished the last page of Mr. Lebedev’s indictment at about 15:35. Judge Danilkin asked Mr. Lakhtin if he was finished, and, after receiving an affirmative answer, adjourned the proceeding until Monday, April 20th.