Mikhail Khodorkovsky remains a pivotal political figure in Russia despite all attempts to sideline and marginalise him, the European Parliament heard today, as Karinna Moskalenko, a leading Russian human rights lawyer, briefed MEPs on political prisoners in the country.

Ms Moskalenko, who has acted as an attorney of record for Khodorkovsky and other Russian political prisoners at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, reminded the European Parliament’s human rights committee of the decade of injustice that Khodorkovsky has suffered as a result of two politically-motivated prosecutions against him.

Ms Moskalenko said that the presence of political prisoners in Russia demonstrates a systemic problem that began with Khodorkovsky’s arrest and first prosecution ten years ago and continues today with the trial of Alexey Navalny.

She pointed to the hundreds of cases that the Moscow-based International Protection Centre – the NGO under whose banner she conducts her work – is pursuing at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg as evidence of the political use and abuse of justice in Russia.

The two-hour hearing on Russia focused also on the latest developments in the Magnitsky case, the politically-motivated prosecution of some members of the feminist collective Pussy Riot and the recent crackdown on civil society organisations.

You can watch a recording of the hearing here.