The following account of Khodorkovsky’s Supreme Court appeal hearing has been adapted from the website of Khodorkovsky’s Russian Press Centre, which was live blogging the proceedings.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s and Platon Lebedev’s appeal hearing began today at 10am Moscow time in the Chamber 3078 of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The case was heard by a panel of three judges – presiding Judge Magomedov, rapporteur Judge Shalumov and Judge Rudakov.

The hearing, at which the media was present, was attended by Khodorkovsky’s parents Marina Philippovna and Boris Moiseevich and Lebedev’s son Mikhail. Around 80 people filled the courtroom.

Khodorkovsky was present at the hearing via a video link, and was clearly visible to the Court on a big screen, with mesh netting between him and the camera. Behind him, on the wall, there was a plate stating “SEGEZHA. Colony’s number. Premises of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation”. He looked okay, dressed in a prison uniform with a badge on his chest., his hair cut short.

During the hearing Khodorkovsky’s parents were looking intently at the screen. The last time the public saw him was in June 2011 in the Basmanny Court where he was a witness in the case of Valdes-Garcia.

At first the court was determining whether to permit video recording in the courtroom. The defence team, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the prosecutor were not against filming of the session in full. But the judge allowed shooting only of the prologue and of the decision announcement.

The prosecutor began her speech first, stating that she has no reasons for any changes of the verdict.

Next was Khodorkovsky’s turn: “Your Honour, I will take 10 minutes.” He appeared smart, low-key, and spoke very clearly and confidently.

Full text of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s speech.

After Khodorkovsky the defence took its turn to speak.

The first was the head of Khodorkovsky’s defence team, Vadim Klyuvgant, followed by Alexei Miroshnichenko and Vladimir Krasnov.

 Vadim Klyuvgant:

“In this case, a very simple case, if you peel off all the layers of lies and debris of all kinds of trash, there is, and initially was, no grounds for even one day of punishment, not to mention the decade.

Because the very foundation of criminal liability under Article 8 of the Criminal Code is missing – there is no criminal act with all required elements of the crime. Mikhail Borisovich has already pointed out several examples of hopeless contradictions of the appealed verdict.

In the verdict, everything contradicts everything: some conclusions contradict others, and all of the conclusions contradict the law, circumstances established by the court, other already valid court’s judgments, common sense, and basic rules of formal logic. All this deprives the verdict of all meaning and content, in spite of its huge volume.

All attempts of the higher authorities to correct and smooth these unavoidable evils of this verdict invariably led only to a new piling of meaninglessness and falsehood. All of these gigantic efforts of the repressive system and the courts joining in, all of these thousands of pages of the court’s documents, not only did not prove, but did not even describe any specific facts and actions. No illegality, no gratuitousness, or effective damage to the owner, nor the intent to commit theft.

On the contrary, the more words were said and written, the more obvious the absence of a criminal act became.”

Full text of Vadim Klyuvgant’s speech in Russian.

Full text of Alexei Miroshnichenko’s speech in Russian.

Full text of Vladimir Krasnov’s speech in Russian.

During the break, Boris Moiseevich Khodorkovsky walked to the witness stand in the courtroom, from where Mikhail could see and hear him, and said to his son : “Misha, my dear, I will not say anything. See you later.”

The parents are scheduled to visit Khodorkovsky in Segezha on August 13. This will be a brief two hour meeting conducted through the glass on a phone, despite the fact that the law allows for four hours.

After the break the judges announced the concluding part of the ruling. The appeal was partially granted. The final sentence – 10 years and 10 months for both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. The remainder of the application is dismissed.

The defence announced that they are going to appeal this decision to the chairman of the Supreme Court V. Lebedev.

After the hearing, outside the Court, Khodorkovsky’s parents were interviewed. Marina Philippovna  called the judges “newscasters in black robes that decide nothing,” but said that it was more or less the decision she expected.   Boris Moiseevich said that he hoped the unjust sentence would be cancelled.