Svetlana Dobronravova, a reader of the Metro newspaper, told the publication she overheard lawyers discussing the verdict. “I was attending to my own matters in the Khamovnichesky Court,” said Dobronravova. “It was the last day of arguments in the Yukos case. I accidentally heard a female prosecutor’s telephone conversation. She said: ‘Now the lawyers are rattling off fees, Khodorkovsky is avoiding answering. But the sentence isn’t ready, they haven’t brought it from the Moscow City Court yet.'”

“I’m prepared to testify in court!” she added.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were sentenced to 14 years in prison late last December in the second court case filed against them by the government. They were accused of stealing oil from their own company, Yukos. The case is widely believed to have been politically motivated and analysts and oppositionists alike routinely point to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the driving force behind the guilty verdict.

On Monday, Khamovnichesky Court spokesperson and aide Natalya Vasilyeva said the verdict was not written by presiding Judge Viktor Danilkin, but by judges in the Moscow City Court.

According to Metro, Vasilyeva said her family is now experiencing pressure from Russian law enforcement – internal ministry officials have inquired about her spouse’s documents. The police denied any involvement.

Dobronravova is not the first person to come forward with evidence backing up Vasilyeva’s accusations. On Monday evening, Novaya Gazeta columnist Vera Chelishcheva wrote on the newspaper’s blog: “I agree with what Natasha is saying. We all heard how Danilkin screamed in his chamber during breaks in the hearings. He screamed at prosecutors, so it was occasionally heard in the courtroom.”

Danilkin himself has maintained that the accusations are slander, but, as Kasparov.ru put it, “is not rushing to bring her to court.”

In an interview published Monday by Gazeta.ru, Khamovnichesky Court aide and press secretary Natalya Vasilyeva said the pressure Danilkin was subjected to was “constant” throughout the entire trial and up through when the verdict was read. “I can say that the whole judicial community understands very well that this is a made-to-order case and a made-to-order trial,” she said.

As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports:

Vasilyeva said Danilkin was summoned to the Moscow City Court on December 25, two days before he began reading the verdict, where he was to meet an “important person who had to give him clear instructions about the verdict.”

On December 30, Danilkin sentenced Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev to 14 years in prison. The first eight years were to run concurrently with the eight-year sentences for tax evasion and fraud that the two had been serving since 2003 and which were set to finish this year.

According to Vasilyeva, unspecified top Russian officials were concerned that Danilkin’s verdict would not be sufficiently harsh, “My suspicions are based on what I heard in the court corridors,” she said. “I heard people who were close to the judge say that [Khodorkovsky’s] verdict was written in the Moscow City Court, that it was all done in a hurry, very quickly, and that Danilkin had nothing to do with this verdict.”

At another point in the interview, Vasilyeva said she knew “with absolute certainty that the verdict was brought [to the Khamovnichesky District Court] from the Moscow City Court.”

In remarks reported by Russian news agencies, Danilkin denounced Vasilyeva’s allegations as “slander.”

Likewise, Anna Usacheva, a spokeswoman for the Moscow City Court, called the interview a “provocation” and a “well-planned PR act,” in remarks reported by ITAR-TASS. “I’m certain that Natalya Vasilyeva will … renounce her comments,” she said.

Speaking to Kasparov.ru, political analysts and opposition figures had mixed reactions to the interview:

Stanislav Belkovsky, political analyst:

– Now society will have no doubt that the verdict was unjust. I wouldn’t rule out that Judge Viktor Danilkin himself, who wants to save his own reputation, had something to do with the interview. It’s well known that Danilkin was already acutely distressed back in August 2010, because he knew then that he would have to hand down a conviction without sufficient basis for it. It seems to me that he expected decisions by the Supreme Court and the Kremlin that could have lightened pressure on him from the Moscow City Court and Olga Yegorova, but these decisions never came to be.

It’s unlikely that this interview would have happened without Danilkin’s sanction; I have reason to believe that he knew about it. And the fact that he’s denying this now is entirely normal. Otherwise he would have had the courage to say that he was pressured himself.

Ilya Yashin, co-leader of the Solidarity opposition movement

– This is not, alas, going to have any effect on Khodorkovsky’s fate. Not Danilkin, nor Olga Yegorova, nor the fact that Khodorkovsky was the head of Yukos will have any effect on his fate. The course of events can be affected only one person, and his name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Since Khodorkovsky is Putin’s personal enemy, he’s going to sit in prison for as long as Putin stays in power, because there are going to be illegal reprisals against him.

Aleksei Mukhin, political analyst:

– There are two versions of what happened. Either the girl has a sense of conscience or, more likely, she wants to become famous – to become a witness of the opposition, a ‘devil’s advocate.’ But this is a dead end. The entire state machine is going to work to make sure that this story doesn’t develop. Here we’re talking about chief government executives, and there could be any possible consequences.

Lev Ponomarev, leader of the movement For Human Rights:

– I see this as an extraordinary event that is going to influence the entire situation surrounding Khodorkovsky and Lebedev’s conviction. Criminal charges should be filed for impeding due process. I (and possibly other human rights advocates) are going to appeal to the prosecutor’s office in regards to the publication of this interview. We also need to appeal for Medvedev to take Khodorkovsky’s case under his own control. Vasilyeva needs to be taken into protection. Indeed, criminal charges are going to be filed against her. Even Danilkin has promised to file charges.

A video and the full text of the interview can be found here.

As a group of Russian oppositionists continue to sit out jail sentences received in connection with an unsanctioned rally in defense of free assembly, opposition leader Garry Kasparov warns that the state officials involved in such corrupt and unlawful arrests and convictions will, at some point, have to answer for their crimes.

A Criminal Government
Civil servants will answer to the law for their crimes
By Garry Kasparov
January 3, 2011
Kasparov.ru

Nemtsov – 15 days of administrative arrest. Limonov – 15 days. Kosyakin – 10 days. Yashin – 5 days.

On New Year’s Eve, so-called law enforcement representatives committed criminal offenses against these four citizens of Russia, who were publically expressing their deeply negative attitude towards Putin’s regime. The unlawful arrests on the street, the falsification of charges in the police station, the rubber-stamped court decisions – it’s the entire standard arsenal used by the stooges in the police and the courts, who were installed by the Don and his accomplices to keep order in the “zone.” In this most primitive fashion, these punks, who bust their way into the government, settled scores with their political enemies.

Terrible-looking OMON commanders dutifully fulfill the role of the regime’s cur, ordering their subordinates first to beat defenseless people and then to give false testimony in court. Petty hooliganism, obscene expressions, resistance to police officers, violations of public order – for sure, not one opposition event calling for the observance of the constitution could be held without that. The police know very well that they have nothing to worry about – all the “Judge Danilkins” always guarantee a conviction. To that end, any piece of nonsense from men in uniform is accepted as proof, while any evidence from the defense, including photo and video materials, is rejected.

By the way, judging by the police reaction, everything that happened during the unsanctioned march of football fanatics down Leningradka on December 8 was just peachy. That is to say, there were no hooliganistic antics, violations of public order, or, God forbid, obscene expressions. Yes, and the events of December 11 on Manezhnaya, proceeding from the police’s same logic, did not pose a serious threat to law-abiding citizens – as opposed to the opposition’s provocative gatherings on the 31st.

The criminalization of the state apparatus has reached the highest levels of centralization, in which the thieving government distorts the law and strives to hold onto their loot. Only the “loot,” in this case, is the Russian budget and the natural resources of our country.

And one more thing. On his blog, Ilya Yashin colorfully describes how Officer Dima falsified a police report under pressure from his superiors – that is to say, committed a serious act of professional misconduct without a moment’s thought. It’s interesting to ponder whether all of these Officer “Dimas,” Judge “Danilkins,” and Prosecutor “Lakhtins” think that, one wonderful day, the government of tyrants will ever come to an end in Russia, and a normal judicial system will begin to work, so that they will all have to answer to the law for their crimes. Or are they certain that, even if that time comes, nobody will remember them anyway? Like in 1991…

Vladimir Milov, former energy minister and prominent opposition figure: “Most likely, the sentence is going to be harsh, and I never had any different predictions than that. This is Vladimir Putin’s personal vendetta: he has a personal stake in this. When the Yukos case had only just begun, Putin saw it as a battle for power and Khodorkovsky as a competitor, a real political adversary. And Putin fears him: this is clear from how aggressively he talks about the process.”

Political analyst Dmitri Oreshkin: “It’s too bad for Judge Danilkin. It’s clear that both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were prepared for the fact that they would be convicted. It’s clear that we don’t have independent courts and that there are no chances in the foreseeable future of becoming a state ruled by law. But there are rules to the game, rules called “arbitrariness.” Any sentence more than 8 years would be cruel, so therefore it won’t overlap the term that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev already served. Ten, 12, or 14 years – it’s not even important. What’s important is that it’s going to be imposed not by the courts or the law, but by the government.”

Igor Yakovenko, secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists: “The commentary is just as banal and predictable as the sentence. Everyone I talked to recently nevertheless had hope that Judge Danilkin would suddenly turn out to be a human being, oriented on the law and not on his own job-related considerations; they hoped for a miracle that Medvedev would turn out to be the president and not what he actually is. But there was no miracle – the country, obviously, will keep on sinking for an unknown period of time. The 2000s will keep going, and that’s sad.”

The Telegraph gives a full account of the story:

Judge Victor Danilkin said the former chief executive of oil company Yukos and Platon Lebedev, his business partner, had been found guilty of illegally obtaining some $25 billion (£16.3 billion) in oil revenues from the now defunct company.

“The court has found that Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev committed embezzlement acting in collusion with a group of people and using their professional positions,” Mr Danilkin told a courtroom full of media and defendants’ relatives.

Mr Khodorkovsky’s legal team immediately announced it would appeal. His lawyers attacked the judge for bowing to outside pressure. “We have no doubt that the court was pressured and the court did not make an independent decision,” Vadim Klyugvant, a lawyer for Mr Khodorkovsky, said.

Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev appeared unmoved by the verdict. Mr Lebedev was seen reading a book and exchanging notes with his defence team, while Mr Khodorkovsky exchanged glances with his mother.

Police arrested 30 people outside the courtroom where supporters of Mr Khodorkovsky chanted “freedom” and “down with Putin”. Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister and former president, dismantled Yukos after Mr Khodorkovsky challenged powerful forces in Russia’s establishment.

The defence has maintained that the charges, which amount to stealing all the oil Yukos produced between 1998 and 2003, are absurd and politically motivated. The verdict seemed not to take account of testimony by key public figures including German Gref, the head of Russia’s biggest state owned bank, who said in court that the oil trading scheme at the heart of the case was legal. The judge, who read the verdict for eight hours before adjourning yesterday, also dismissed a green light from audits of Yukos by PricewaterhouseCoopers as based on incomplete and false information.

International reaction raised enduring concerns about Russia’s judicial system.

The [British] Foreign Office said the conviction could threaten trade relations between Britain and Russia. A Foreign Office spokesperson said the law should be applied in a “non-discriminatory and proportional way” in order to sustain an environment “in which investors can remain confident that they can do business, and that property and other rights are soundly protected”.

Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, said he was “very worried”. “The way the trial has been conducted is extremely dubious and a step backward on the road toward a modernisation of the country … It is in the interest of our Russian partners to take these concerns seriously and to stand up for the rule of law, democracy and human rights.”

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, [s]aid the verdict would have a “negative impact on Russia’s reputation” and raised “serious questions about selective prosecution – and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations”.

Reading the full verdict and sentencing is expected to take several days. Most observers expect Mr Khodorkovsky to be in prison at least until 2017, although if the judge shows leniency he could be out in three years.

Mr Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, is reaching the end of an eight-year sentence for tax evasion, which was widely viewed as punishment for funding opposition parties in defiance of Mr Putin.

After the first trial, Yukos was broken up and its assets snapped up at knock-down prices by state-owned oil companies.

Mr Putin has made his views of the former oligarch clear. In a television phone-in on December 16 he compared Mr Khodorkovsky with Bernard Madoff, the convicted US fraudster. Mr Putin also said that “thieves should sit behind bars”, even though the court had not delivered a verdict.

As the BBC reports:

Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has told a court in Moscow that the fate of all Russians rests on the outcome of his trial for embezzlement.

He said no-one believed he would be acquitted of the latest charges, which could extend his jail term until 2017.

The former head of the Yukos oil company has already spent seven years in prison for tax evasion and is scheduled for release next year.

The judge has adjourned the case until he delivers a verdict on 15 December.

Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner Platon Lebedev stand accused of stealing more than two billion barrels of oil between 1998 and 2003, charges which the former tycoon has denounced as rubbish.

“It’s not me and Platon Lebedev who are now standing trial, it’s all the Russian people,” he told the court in his final address on Tuesday.

He sympathised with the judge, Viktor Danilkin, and said that millions of people were following the trial, hoping that Russia would become a country of freedom and law.

Khodorkovsky added that he did not wish to die in jail, but added: “If that is what is needed, I have no hesitation.”

Prosecutor Valery Lakhtin said on Monday that Khodorkovsky’s defence had been built on a lie, based on creating a public perception of a political element to the trial.

Many critics believe the government wants the former tycoon kept behind bars for as long as possible because he challenged former president Vladimir Putin by financing the opposition.

Now prime minister, Mr Putin, is thought likely to run for the presidency again in 2012.

Khodorkovsky has already spent time in prisons in eastern Siberia and in the capital.

But prosecutors have asked the judge for a long prison sentence.

Crowds of Khodorkovsky’s friends and relatives as well as observers and journalists have been battling to get inside a small courtroom in central Moscow to hear the closing stages of this latest trial.

Khodorkovsky’s closing speech can be read in its entirety in English here and in Russian here.

From the Moscow Times:

Kasyanov told the Khamovnichesky District Court that the changes were politically motivated and contradicted the everyday practices of oil companies.

“By the end of 2003, I had a clear understanding that both were arrested under political motives,” he said.

Kasyanov said he tried to talk with Putin after Lebedev was arrested in July 2003 and Khodorkovsky was arrested in October that year, but Putin refused to discuss the issue with him. Only on the third try did Putin reply, he said.

“I asked Putin to clarify what he knew about the situation, but he refused twice, and then he gave me an answer,” Kasyanov said.

“He said Yukos financed Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, political parties that it was allowed to finance, but also the Communist Party, which it wasn’t allowed to.”

Khodorkovsky and his lawyers have been trying for months to convince the court to call the prime minister as a witness. Until Monday, it had dismissed this possibility as “premature,” despite a series of questions penned by Khodorkovsky that only Vladimir Putin would be able to properly address.

After Kasyanov’s testimony, the idea that such a subpoena would be premature made even less sense than before. Therefore, lawyers for the defense requested once again that the court call in Prime Minister Putin, as well as Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, arguing that new circumstances had come to light that made their interrogations necessary for the case.

On Thursday, however, the court turned down the lawyers’ request. Judge Viktor Danilkin had said previously that he “did not find any legal basis” for the subpoenas, and now said that the new arguments by the defense left no different impression. The prime minister and finance minister would be interrogated only if they personally appeared in court, he said.

Prosecutor Vyacheslav Smirnov, meanwhile, made it clear that there would be no interrogation of the prime minister in the Khamovnichesky Court, period. When journalists asked him why, Smirnov responded: “Because we live on the ground.”

The announcement from the prosecution came as a surprise since, aside from the fact that the case had become seemingly endless, Prosecutor Gyulchekhra Ibragimova had previously told presiding Judge Viktor Danilkin that “maybe, yes,” there would be more witnesses on Monday. Even after the revised announcement, however, Prosecutor Valery Lakhtin stipulated that they maintain the right to call more witnesses at a later point in time. “This is an inalienable right of both the defense and the prosecution,” he said.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were both convicted on controversial charges of fraud in 2005, and have been sitting in prison ever since. In the current case, the two are charged with embezzling all of the oil produced by Yukos between 1998 and 2003 and profiting from its sale. Since the beginning of court hearings on March 9, 2009, prosecutors read out chosen passages at length from the hefty 188-volume case, not calling their first witness until the end of September. But neither that witness nor any of the proceeding 50 others testified to having any knowledge that any oil had been stolen at all.

The defense, meanwhile, has a list of 250 witnesses that it would like to call to court. Chiefly among them is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is widely believed to have personally ordered the original case against Khodorkovsky. In an interview earlier this month with the British newspaper The Independent, the former Yukos CEO issued a series of questions that he wants Putin to answer under oath. Regardless of what witnesses the defense ends up successfully bringing to court, Khodorkovsky is expected to testify first. Lebedev, in his turn, has said that he will be the last.

Compiled from reports by Gazeta.ru.