Russia’s Supreme Court today heard an appeal regarding the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. Incredibly, despite the enormous weight of legal and factual arguments undermining it, the appeal judges confirmed the December 2010 guilty verdict and failed to conduct any thorough judicial analysis of the appellants’ arguments. The Court did, however, reduce the sentences of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev by two months. Khodorkovsky is therefore now scheduled for release in August 2014.

Khodorkovsky addressed the Court by video link from the penal colony in Segezha where he is serving his 11-year sentence. Despite the Court’s refusal to consider the flaws at the heart of the guilty verdict, he once again explained the fundamental absurdity of the charges. Khodorkovsky stated:

“It is impossible simultaneously to preserve the appearance of the lawfulness of the plundering of YUKOS by charging it trebled additional taxes as the owner of the oil, and the appearance of the lawfulness of a verdict that finds that the same oil had been embezzled by me – and belonged to the so-called injured parties!”

In his words, the verdict, which has so many inconsistencies and contradictions, is nothing more than a big “lie.” Khodorkovsky declared: “What good faith can there be here then? Is it worth it to strike such a heavy blow to the Russian court system’s reputation yet again? And for what? For the sake of the irrational fears of government officials at seeing me and Platon Lebedev at liberty even after ten years of confinement?

In my opinion, to treat the law and the reputation of the court like this is barbaric. Unjust court decisions have already become one of the main detonators of protests. The demands of an ever-greater part of society can be boiled down to Solzhenitsyn’s simple formula: ‘Live not by lies’. Or, in the words of the street: ‘don’t tell lies and don’t be afraid’. I do not know about the bureaucracy, but for the country this would be useful indeed.”

As a result of such contradictory trials, Khodorkovsky argued that: “the entire system of law in the country is gradually falling to pieces.”

In concluding his remarks, he said:

“I ask that the Supreme Court overturn this juridically illiterate verdict.”

As a result of today’s hearing the Court did, however, reduce the sentences of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev by two months.

Khodorkovsky’s defence lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, told the Court:

“In this case, a very simple case, if you peel off all the layers of lies and debris of all kinds of trash, there is, and initially was, no grounds for even one day of punishment, not to mention the decade.”

Following the Court’s ruling, which upheld the 2010 guilty verdict, Khodorkovsky’s lawyers said that they intend to appeal the verdict.

The second Khodorkovsky-Lebedev trial, which ran from 2009 to 2010, was widely condemned in Russia and around the world. Amnesty International declared Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to be prisoners of conscience, while the International Bar Association concluded that “this trial was not fair”, and was “incapable of producing clear proof” for a sound conviction.

In 2011, Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council held an inquiry into the second trial and concluded that the guilty verdict should be annulled. Law enforcement agents subsequently attacked people involved in the inquiry on allegations of “obstruction of justice”. These attacks are reportedly linked to a third case being prepared against Khodorkovsky, which could prolong his prison sentence long into the future.

Today’s Supreme Court ruling follows a July 25, 2013 decision by the European Court of Human Rights, which found grave violations undermining the fairness of the first Khodorkovsky-Lebedev trial, from 2004 to 2005, and which conceded that Russian officials involved in that trial might have had a “hidden agenda” against Khodorkovsky.