The Chita Regional Court on Monday approved an application from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Public Prosecutor’s Office to extend to 2 August the detention in the Chita pre-trial detention facility of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of the Yukos oil company.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office maintains that this is necessary in order to allow the accused to familiarise himself with a large quantity of investigative materials and specialist reports. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office understands there are 152 volumes relating to this case, and that Mikhail Khodorkovsky has studied 147 of these,” the PPO representative said in court.

According to Interfax-Sibir Agency’s report from the courtroom, the representative claimed that if Khodorkovsky were granted parole on his first sentence he might abscond or obstruct the investigation.

Khodorkovsky and his attorneys disagreed. The former head of Yukos repeated once more that if he were detained under less severe conditions he had no intention of leaving the country.

One of his attorneys then expressed doubt about the value of the intelligence supposedly obtained by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. “The court has no way of checking the reliability of this information, and no source has been indicated,” he protested.

The attorneys requested that the Chita Regional Court’s decision to extend the period of their client’s custody in the pre-trial detention facility should be ruled unlawful and without foundation.

“The court has not even formally listed the bases on which it would consider extension of the period of custodial detention to be justified,” attorney Karinna Moskalenko told the court. She emphasised that in its application the investigation had warned the court that Khodorkovsky might be released under his first sentence and might abscond. “Tomorrow anything at all might happen to that verdict: it might be annulled and Khodorkovsky freed,” Moskalenko said, adding that this argument by the investigation was unlawful.

The attorney also criticised the court’s claim that Khodorkovsky might influence witnesses and attempt to suppress evidence. “It is quite wrong that a citizen of the Russian Federation, be that Khodorkovsky, Ivan Ivanov, or anybody else, should have to await a verdict on his case and a questionable indictment in prison,” the attorney commented.

A similar hearing in respect of Platon Lebedev, former head of MENATEP, will be considered by the Chita Regional Court on Tuesday.

(Interfax, 21 April 2008)