Yuri Schmidt statement.

"While the case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev was being considered in court, many people did not realise that the true aim of the authorities is not to punish the 'criminals' but to destroy political opponents and steal their property. Today one should look hard for someone that naïve, who would doubt that evil intentions of those under the masks of high ranking officials are behind the transfer of the ill Lebedev to the Far North and Mikhail Khodorkovsky to the Far East, to the most hardly accessible colony of the country. They are behind sophisticated harassment and ungrounded punishments, which Khodorkovsky experiences from the administration of the colony.

"Of course both the inmates and their lawyers keep fighting. A complaint has been filed with a court against violation of the inmates' rights to sever their term in a colony close to place of their residence. Unfortunately it is unlikely a fair decision will be made, especially after president Putin said 'convicted do not choose where to server their term, the Justice Ministry has a right to decide.'

"Let us remind you that this issue is resolved by law and no minister can change the rules set. According to article 73 of the Code for the Execution of Sentences, all inmates except those belonging to specified categories: foreigners, those infected with tuberculosis, employees of law enforcement agencies, highly dangerous, subsequent offenders, etc, should serve their term near the place of their residence or the place where they were convicted. If there are no colonies in these regions, they should serve in one of the nearest subjects of the Russian Federation."

"The defence team of the two inmates has numerously talked about unprecedented defiant violations of the rights of the inmates in the time period prior to the cassation of the case and during the hearings of the cassation case by the board of the Moscow city court. Now we know that at that time from July-August 2005, the structures of the Federal Services of Punishment Implementation were doing preparations to send Platon Lebedev and Mikhail Khodorkovsky to remote colonies, while the verdict on their case did not come into force. These illegal actions were presented as a legitimate decision."

"This is yet more evidence of coordination between various authorities, aligning their actions in one strategy, against the defendants. Courts, the procuracy and the Federal Services of Punishment Implementation are just puppets in someone elses hands."

"Less than six months into Khodorkovsky’s sentence, he received several punishments for allegedly breaking colony rules. Before I thought that the colony management was following the command of those at the top and who are attempting to create obstacles for Khodorkovsky’s conditional early release. After he was placed to the punitive cell for the second time, however, I suspected that the authorities wish to completely eliminate him. Having realised that it is impossible to break Khodorkovsky’s sprit, the authorities switched to pressure which he can not physically bear."

"Russian Criminal – Penitentiary legislation makes it easy to make the life of an inmate unbearable. An inmate placed into punitive cell is banned from meetings, telephone calls, receiving packages and buying food for the whole time of the punishment (15 days). If he is placed there for the second time, it creates grounds to consider the convicted a malicious abuser and transfer him to the cell of a chamber type for up to one year. Such convicted are banned from meetings for the whole time of the sentence in this cell. They can get a parcel once in six months. The monthly amount spent on food should not exceed half of the minimum wage. A meeting might be allowed once in six months but only at the special permission of the administration, which should be deserved!

We all know what “malicious” violations of the rules of the colony Khodorkovsky was punished. First he was put into the punitive cell when they found “prohibited documents” in his toilet table. These are two orders of the Minister of Justice on the rights and obligations of convicted. These orders, taken from open sources and published in the Rossiskaya Gazeta that he received by post, which had been checked by the colony’s control (censor), which are responsible for confiscating of prohibited materials. The censor let the documents pas but the same day Khodorkovsky’s toilet table was searched, these orders were confiscated at “prohibited documents”.

It is the right of any citizen to know the legal acts and is a necessary condition for one to be able to realise his or her rights and lawful interests. As for convicted these fundamental provisions of the Russian Constitution and international agreements to which Russia is a party are specified in the norms of the Russian Code of Implementation of Punishments.

Article 10. Fundamentals of the legal state of the convicted

During implementation of punishment convicted are guaranteed rights and freedoms of citizens of Russian Federation, with exclusions and restrictions outlined in the Russian Criminal Code, Russian Code for Punishment implementations and other Russian legislation.

Article 12. Basic rights of theconvicted

Convicted have a right to receive information about their rights and responsibilities, the order and conditions of serving their term and type of punishment, set by a court. The administration of the body implementing the punishment is obliged to provide convicted with the said information and get them familiar with changes in the order and conditions of serving their term. Convicted have a right to suggest, complain and appeal to the administration the body that implements the punishment, as well as to superior bodies that implement punishments, the government bodies and local administration, social unions and intergovernmental bodies that defend rights and freedoms of individuals.

As for seven days in the punitive sell for taking tea in a “wrong place”, even veteran political prisoners who served their terms in soviet prisons treated with suspicion. Estimating if a convicted has been given an adequate punishment for the “violation” we should remember that meetings with lawyer in a colony are allowed outside working hours – from 18 till 22. On March 2 the Highest Court ruled this order was illegal, but General procuracy appealed this decision, and it has not come into force yet. In order to spend as much time with the lawyers as possible Khodorkovsky has to miss his dinner. After he finished the meeting the canteen was already closed and he could not take his cup of tea, which is allowed for him by law, and which he did not get, in the “right” place.

There is a long term tradition in Russian to send criminals to remote hardly reachable places, it starts from middle ages. The legislation divides these places in two categories: the most remote areas of Siberia and not so remote areas. This division was first introduced in 1845 in “Document on implementation of punishments”. It officially existed in Russian Empire till 1900.

On February 21 1948 the General Committee of the Highest Board of the USSR issued a Decree “On transfer of highly dangerous state prisoners to live in remote areas of the USSR after they serve their prison term.” The decree said that at the order of the state security services of the USSR all those who served their sentences in special prison camps should have been sent to live in Kolyma, Krasnoyarski Kray, Novosibirskaya oblast and other remote areas under the vigilance of the Ministry of State Security. “trozkysts, the right, the Mensheviks, anarchists, nationalists, white émigrés and members of other anti-Soviet organisations and groups of individuals that pose danger with their connections and hostile activates” were related to this category.

In 1956 after the 20th meeting of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union this Decree was annulled.

As we see its spirit is revived today and transfer to the “most remote” areas not only without any legal basis but even against the law is being applied selectively to individuals who as the authorities believe pose danger “with their connections and hostile activates”. Therefore the authorities themselves recognised these individuals as political prisoners.

Lawyer Yuri Schmidt