May 31, 2013 – Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyers condemn the harassment and intimidation by Russia’s law enforcement agencies of experts who participated in a 2011 inquiry into Khodorkovsky’s second trial. According to media reports, the authorities have concocted unfounded, wrongheaded and defamatory allegations concerning the independence of the experts. These allegations are an attempt to smear Khodorkovsky, discredit the Russian Presidential Council for Human Rights, discourage civic engagement by academics and suppress opposition to the regime.

In 2011, the Council for Human Rights, with the support of then-President Dmitry Medvedev, invited renowned independent experts to study the December 2010 verdict against Khodorkovsky and his co-accused business partner Platon Lebedev. Analyses by those experts, six Russians and three from abroad, led the Council to conclude that there was no valid legal basis or evidence supporting the guilty verdict; that the proceedings were severely marred by violations of fundamental human rights; and more broadly that the case highlighted widespread systemic problems in Russia’s law enforcement practices and judiciary. The Council called for an annulment of the “illegal” guilty verdict and the release of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, and also for a series of reforms to address the systemic problems illustrated by their proceedings. The extensive analyses of the experts were published in full.

The findings of the inquiry, albeit without judicial force, are profoundly uncomfortable for those in power in Russia. Rather than address the substance of the criticisms, however, the response of Russia’s law enforcement agencies has been to launch a crackdown against experts and reformers who challenge the status quo of legal nihilism and economic stagnation.

Consequently, there has been speculation in the media that this campaign of harassment and intimidation could signal the preparation of a third trial against Khodorkovsky. This speculation has intensified against the backdrop of an announcement by Russia’s Supreme Court on May 19 that it would hear an appeal regarding Khodorkovsky’s second trial. The Supreme Court’s appeal hearing, scheduled for August 6, will not in fact review the guilty verdict, but rather the appropriateness of the duration of sentencing. The prospect that Khodorkovsky may qualify for earlier release only intensifies speculation that a third trial is being planned to extend his imprisonment.

Although maintaining that there are no legal grounds for a third case against his client, Khodorkovsky’s lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant yesterday commented: “Anything may happen amid this lawlessness”.

The harassment and intimidation of the experts is in keeping with the increasingly dangerous tendencies being unleashed by a paranoid regime intolerant of dissenting views, and incapable of allowing Khodorkovsky to walk free.