Following Khodorkovsky’s appeal hearing in Russia’s Supreme Court’s on August 6, which upheld the verdict of his second trial while reducing his sentence by two months, German parliamentarians Marina Schuster, spokesperson for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid of the parliamentary group of the Liberal Party, and Marieluise Beck, of the Green Party, as well as human rights NGO Memorial Germany issued related statements on their websites.

Schuster stated in a press release that, “the decision by the Russian Supreme Court cannot be seen as a sign of a progress of the Human Rights situation in Russia, although the shortened sentence is appreciated.”

She pointed out that the hearing fell short of the standards required by Russian law and also drew attention to last month’s European Court of Human Rights judgment ruling that the first Khodorkovsky-Lebedev trial was unfair. Therefore, she stated, the parliamentary group of the Liberal Party called on the Russian government to fulfil its obligations according to the European Convention on Human Rights and release Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.

Green Party MP, Marieluise Beck also issued a press release arguing that the Supreme Court hearing has to be seen in the context of the case against Khodorkovsky as a whole.  Beck noted that the ECtHR judgment only covered the first trial and that the second trial, the charges of which contradicted those of the first, was condemned by Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council under President Medvedev. In conclusion, she added that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, where Putin wants to be celebrated by the international community, will take place before Khodorkovsky is due for release and pointed to the possibility of a third trial.

Memorial Germany, meanwhile, quoted from Khodorkovsky’s statement to the Court and quoted his defence lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant stating that: “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.”