Judge in Cyprus Denies Russian Extradition Request:

Accuses Russian Judges of Inappropriate Conduct and Russian Government of Political Motivation in Yukos Cases


In another landmark decision, a Western court has rejected the Russian Government’s claims that the trial and conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were anything other than a politically motivated use of Russia’s courts to silence and punish perceived political opponents.

Following on earlier decisions in Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Liechtenstein and Lithuania, a District Court judge in Nicosia, Cyprus has flatly rejected the Russian Government’s request to extradite former Yukos executive Vladislav Kartashov.

After weeks of hearing witnesses and examining thousands of pages of documents, the Cyprus court found that none of those accused in connection with the Yukos cases could expect to receive a fair trial in Russia because the proceedings, from beginning to end, “are tainted with political motives in contravention of article 3 of the European Convention on the Extradition of Fugitives.”

In his 55 page written opinion, District Court Judge D.J. Alecos Panayiotou is especially critical of several of the Russian Government witnesses brought to testify in favor of the extradition request, one of whom admitted in open court that he had consulted with five Russian judges involved in the Yukos cases before traveling to Nicosia to testify. The purpose of these meetings, the witness said, was to help prepare him to answer accusations that defendants in Yukos-related cases could not obtain a fair trial in Russia.

But Judge Panayiotou said he found the admitted collusion between judges and prosecution witnesses highly irregular, lending credence to representations that the Russian judiciary lacks independence and is open to political manipulation, especially in high profile political cases like the Yukos prosecution, which began in 2003.

“The entire testimony…places the present case amongst those exceptional cases where the Court must not order the extradition because …there is a real risk that (the defendant’s) right to a fair trial will be flagrantly violated,” the judge ruled.

In order to reach his decision that Kartashov should not be extradited from Cyprus to stand trial in Russia for tax evasion and other financial crimes alleged in connection with his duties as head of a Yukos-related oil trading company, Judge Panayiotou examined---and flatly rejected---the Russian government’s assertion that the charges filed against Kartashov and every other Yukos executive, including Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, were not politically motivated.

“In this case it is not important to determine whether (Kartashov) has any political views or whether he participated in any way in the political life in Russia,” the judge wrote. “What is important is that the charges brought against him fall within the wider framework of the Yukos case. As a manager of a company connected with Yukos, the respondent must be considered as a member of the class of the “oligarchs”, a class which the Russian authorities set as their political aim to dissolve, according to the testimony of professor Sakwa that was accepted by the Court.

“I must also note that the testimony of the witnesses who testified on behalf of the requesting state (Russia) was also strongly politically coloured. The views on prejudice and hate against Russia, the defamation of Russian Justice by western media and the intervention of politicians in Switzerland in the issue of Judicial decisions serving the interests of the West can only be judged as clearly political.”

The Cypriot decision came after an extraordinary effort by the Russian Government to obtain Kartashov’s extradition and reverse its string of losses in other European courts.

The Government called nine witnesses to testify in Nicosia, among them: Alexander Khaliulin, professor of criminal procedure and criminology at the Russia Legal Academy of the Ministry of Justice who also teaches criminal procedure to senior members of the Attorney General’s office in Moscow; Julia Krokhina, dean of the Russian Academy of Law and author of “Tax Law in Russia;” and Tatiana Rousanova, an investigator in the office of the public prosecutor of the Russian Federation.

In his opinion, dated 10 April, the judge said repeatedly that the Russian expert witnesses were unconvincing, badly prepared and that, in many instances, their testimony was counter productive to their case.

“The witnesses Yiani, Khaliulin, Krokhina, Rousanova, Kletsova and Yablokov, instead of responding with convincing arguments to the scientific and well-documented position of the defence, sufficed themselves in testifying aphoristically and generally like for instance:

Investigator Rousanova (P.W. no 7): “Whoever alleges human rights violations at the Yukos trials must hate Russia very much’ or ‘the legal costs of the respondent in this case are paid by the theft of oil from Yukos’ or even ‘the rapporteur of PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) was prejudiced and did not take into account the position of the Russian side,’ ignoring the fact that Schnarrenberger’s report contains extensive references to the positions of both sides.

“The general impression which the prosecution witnesses…made on me is that the purpose of their testimony was not to enlighten the court,” the judge wrote. “They did not hesitate to skillfully avoid replying to questions which, in their opinion, did not assist their case. It is a fact that the side of the requesting state (Russia) did not manage to give a convincing answer to all those which (Mr. Kartushov’s) witnesses testified on in a well-documented way.”

Among those testifying against the Kartashov extradition were William Bowring, professor of law at the University of London, a leading authority on Russia’s legal system and Professor Richard Sakwa of the University of Kent in Canterbury.

In another Yukos-related case, Cyprus’ Supreme Court last week upheld the denial of extradition to Russia of Ivan Kolesnikov, a lawyer with the Moscow law firm of AML Feldmans. Kolesnikov’s extradition was requested by the Russian authorities in January, 2005 and denied by the Larnaka, Cyprus District Court in July 2006. The Russian Government appealed that decision but on May 13, the Cyprus Supreme Court denied the appeal, saying the Russian authorities had failed to provide sufficient and proper documentation in support of the extradition request.

Lawyers for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev called the Cyprus rulings another important victory in their continuing fight to demonstrate the illegality of the Yukos criminal prosecutions and bankruptcy and another example of the inability of the Russian government to persuade any court outside of Russia that the YUKOS cases are anything other than thinly disguised political retribution.

“Once again, another neutral court has looked at the evidence and concluded that the Russian proceedings are so tainted with political and due process violations that no one has or ever will receive a fair trial in these proceedings,” said Robert Amsterdam, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s international legal counsel. “These cases underscore the urgency of the calls by The Economist and other Western media that the Khodorkovsky/Yukos prosecution must come to an end if the Russian government’s commitment to rule of law and an independent judiciary is to be credible.”


For more information contact:

Yuri Schmidt:
(7)-917-530-3697

Robert Amsterdam:
(1)-416-827-4111