by an eyewitness.

Chita Regional Court Judge Lyudmila Alexeyevna Kalashnikova today heard the latest application by the investigation to extend the period of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s detention to 2 August 2008.

Prosecutor Valerii Lakhtin, making the application, gave as the legal basis for his request the total impossibility of completing the necessary procedures by 2 May, when the current period ends. “This is a particularly complex case and time is needed for familiarisation with additional materials presented by victims, and the indictment needs to be prepared,” he stated. As on previous occasions, one of the arguments for extending the custodial detention was a claim that Khodorkovsky might exert influence on witnesses and abscond from the investigation.

The prosecutor presented the report of an unnamed official of one of the departments of the Interior Ministry which claimed the agency had information showing that such were Khodorkovsky’s intentions. In support of the contention that pressure might be brought to bear on witnesses, newspaper materials were produced along with information from the interrogation of Alexey Golubovich, according to which Khodorkovsky had advised him to leave the country. Mr Lakhtin also made public an interview with Ravil Burganov stating that shareholders of YUKOS were providing material support to suspects in the case.

The supervisory prosecutor unexpectedly claimed his application was in Khodorkovsky’s own interests, referring to the fact that there were now 152 volumes of case materials, with only 147 of which Khodorkovsky had yet familiarised himself. The prosecutor suggested that Khodorkovsky’s attorneys also needed time to familiarise themselves with these.

As evidence of Khodorkovsky’s ability to continue to endure the rigours of the pre-trial detention facility, the court was presented with a medical certificate which the facility had solicitously produced that morning. This stated that as usual Khodorkovsky had made no complaints, and the state of his health was satisfactory.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Attorney Boris Gruzd, representing his interests, disputed the prosecution’s argumentation.

Khodorkovsky pointed out to the court that the Interior Ministry report alleging they had information about his intention to influence witnesses and to abscond was not the first such document. Reports making similar unsubstantiated claims had been presented at every stage of the proceedings as a justification for continuing custodial detention.

“I consider this a slander, accusing me of criminal activity. I have appealed on this matter to the Ostankino Court in Moscow to protect my honour and dignity. That court refused to consider the matter, claiming that assessment of the documents was the province of the Chita Regional Court,” he stated.

Attorney Boris Gruzd noted that, quite apart from the unsubstantiated nature and untruthfulness of the report, it had a number of formal defects: there was no indication of when or where it had been drawn up.

The court accepted the arguments of Khodorkovsky and Gruzd and ruled that the report should not be included in the case materials.

The defence then applied for printouts from the websites of the Kommersant newspaper (interview with Shvartsman), the Wall Street Journal, and Ekho Moskvy radio station which refer to the political motivation of the Khodorkovsky case to be added to the case materials. The court granted this application.

As regards the substance of the investigation’s arguments in its application to extend detention, Boris Gruzd commented that it was simply irrelevant to talk about the exceptional complexity and length of the investigation. “Ninety-five percent of the materials of this criminal case consist of photocopies, with the originals scattered through other criminal cases. All the investigative action is taking place in Moscow, where the actual investigation took just one and a half months, like any run-of-the-mill village theft, and accordingly the investigation’s claims that the case is complex do not bear scrutiny,” he stated.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky then informed the court that for the past five years the investigation had been fabricating a case on the orders of politicians. “I have made no secret of the fact that I advised Golubovich to emigrate, but at that time he was neither a witness nor otherwise involved in the case. It is well-known that after my arrest all the company’s financial resources passed to other YUKOS shareholders and hence I have unfortunately not been in a position to provide my colleagues with material support. I am glad to say it has been forthcoming from elsewhere.

“The investigation knows as well as I do that this is a false accusation, manufactured for political purposes, and that the indictment was drawn up by criminals. This is indeed a particularly complex case and that is why it is being investigated at such length. Lakhtin is right about that. It is only on paper that the investigation was completed on 17 February 2007. In actual fact, it was been continuing into other matters and the materials of this parallel investigation have been tacked on to these case materials under the pretext that they are statements by victims.

At my own and Dyatlev’s request (Khodorkovsky’s attorney, Denis Dyatlev) only one single page has been added to the case, while 19 volumes have been added by the investigation which is masquerading as victims. Pretending that it is my own application, they have added what they themselves saw fit.

“I request that the court disallow consideration in its ruling of defamatory statements about my supposed desire to abscond. With full deliberation and awareness I decided to give myself the opportunity of presenting my position in court. The investigation has not doubted my mental capacity. After the investigation began I flew abroad on many occasions, and took a conscious decision to return to my homeland.”

The judge took more than three hours to reach her decision, which managed to be simultaneously predictable and unexpected. Judge Kalashnikova, having listened attentively to the logical and well founded addresses of Khodorkovsky and his attorney, having accepted his application to exclude the materials of the Prosecutor’s Office, announced her verdict: “The application by investigator Alyshev, supported by the first deputy public prosecutor, is granted and detention in custody is extended to 2 August 2008.”