The Basmanny Court also has on its roster postponed ones.

Khodorkovsky’s defence team has filed an objection before the Basmanny Court on the investigation in Chita.

‘We’ve lodged a complaint about its illegality,’ Yuri Schmidt, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, has told Interfax.

‘What we’re objecting to is the transfer to Chita of the pre-trial investigation two weeks before its conclusion,” he said, adding that the defence wanted the decree authorizing it to be pronounced illegal.

He noted meanwhile that a further defence complaint about Mr. Khodorkovsky’s illegal transfer from the prison-colony to the Chita pre-trial detention-centre will not now be heard until March 26.

‘First my complaint was lost, and now it’s been put off for a month,’ he said. A similar objection from the defence of Platon Lebedev is also to be heard on March 26.

(Interfax, 01.03.2007)