Defence lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant was interviewed by Khodorkovsky’s Russian Press Centre outside court, following the August 6 hearing:

What is your reaction to the court decision?

In this case your reaction is more important than ours, because tomorrow any one of you can be declared a thief, an embezzler, or any other kind of a criminal. It is already obvious that if even the Supreme Court pretends not to see and hear obvious things, it means it is already wide-spread practice. The same thing can happen with anyone, at any time, under any thought-up charges. I think this is important for all of us. As for us, we’ll continue fighting. These two months that were graciously gifted by the Supreme Court, I won’t comment on them, everything is clear with them. We will keep fighting for the truth. Law and fairness, as we can see, are yet to start working in this case. More than ten years that have passed since it began turned out not to be enough for that.

When will Khodorkovsky and Lebedev walk out of the colony?

I don’t know when they will walk out. I can tell you that based on what we have just heard at the Supreme Court, this should happen two months earlier. And I don’t know what may happen during that time as a result of all the actions of all the parties.

Will you appeal today’s decision?

We are going to discuss this among us now, discuss it with our clients, and then we will be able to say for sure, but I think that we will use this chance as well.

The two-month reduction, is it a mockery? What is it?

In my view, it is a two-month reduction. Nothing more, nothing less. You heard our case, you realise the scale of the disaster, about the rest everyone can make a conclusion themselves: how much the decision fits the situation, how appropriate it is.

How do Khodorkovsky and Lebedev feel?

The conditions of Russian penal colonies never were, and are not, conducive to feeling better. Especially after 10 years. But considering all that, his spirit is unbreakable and he has plenty of strength.

Could you please comment on today’s speeches of the prosecutor and the alleged representative of the injured party, the Federal Property Management Agency.

Those who sent the girl from the Federal Property Management Agency here today were totally wrong. And she, it seems to me, did not realise this until she found herself in the courtroom. And I think she herself felt quite uncomfortable. But I am grateful to her for her laconic style. The Property Management Agency, after all, was an injured party in the count that was terminated by the Khamovnichesky Court a long time ago due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Regarding the prosecutor, we’ve seen this lady today for the first time, but the degree of her convincingness, laconism, and, the most importantly, argumentativeness did not differ much from those of the person sitting next to her (the prosecutor was sitting next to the representative of the Property Management Agency – PC). The prosecutor had an apparently stock speech, it was an absolutely standard set of phrases which could be uttered without having to have read anything on the case.