Yesterday, despite the prosecution’s appeal against the return of deceased Yukos lawyer Vasily Alexanyan’s property to his family, the Moscow City Court judges decided to release the seized property in question. Alexanyan died in 2011, killed as a result of being denied medical treatment by the authorities during his pre-trial detention.

The criminal case against Alexanyan was dismissed by the Simonovsky Court in June 2010; the same court has ruled on the release of Alexanyan’s property, at the request of his defence team, three times – in December 2011, May 2012 and December 2012. Each time the prosecution appealed against the property’s return and twice the Moscow City Court has ruled in favour of the prosecution.

At the hearing, the prosecutor and the lawyer representing Alexanyan’s family, Gevorg Dangyan, summarised their respective arguments, which remained the same as in previous hearings. Dangyan requested that the previous decision of the Simonovsky Court, to return the seized property to Alexanyan’s family, should be upheld. After nine minutes of deliberation, the judge announced that the decision would, at last, be upheld.

The state owned television channel 1TV, which had been present at the hearing, filmed Dangyan commenting that: “On one hand, we are, of course, satisfied that the court put an end to the continuing and unjust violation of my trustee’s rights [Alexanyan’s father]. On the other hand, however, I deeply believe that such a decision should have been handed down 3 years ago, when the criminal case [against Alexanyan] was dismissed”.