Zoïa Svetova, a prominent Russian journalist for The New Times journal first published ‘When innocent people become guilty: How the Russian justice is manipulated’ nearly two years ago in Russia, and now, the new edition of the book is seeing light in France. The story focuses on two real life characters whose lives were broken by the crooked judicial system in Russia.

The new French edition has been enriched by a 40 page addition ‘Posthumous words of innocent people’ which includes invaluable texts from Vasily Aleksanyan – ‘I will not be a false witness’, Sergei Magnitsky – ‘A day without food’, and a one page letter from Mikhail Khodorkovsky to Zoïa Svetova entitled ‘They try to make us strangers to each other’. In this letter, Mikhail Khodorkovsky writes that he “has read the book in a day”, and that “this book is very useful for people who enjoy freedom, but it looks more like a “hope-killer” for prisoners like me”, adding, “anyway, I already had no hope”. Mikhail also asks for news from the two prisoners, the unfortunate heroes of the book, he writes “this young woman is part of our community”, he concludes “our problem, in Russia, is that we are strangers to each other, we are only close with our family, and not even always”, but “maybe this is changing now, or is it another illusion?”

As if in response to Mikhail, for the unveiling of the French version of the book, Zoïa has been joined by the heroine of her book, the innocent victim of the manipulated Russian “justice” – a young Chechen woman Zara, who spend nearly third of her life in a camp after being wrongly accused of “terrorism”. During the presentation Zoïa stated, in regard to Mikhail Khodorkovsky: “It is totally unacceptable, scandalous, that such a great and innocent man would be in jail for nearly ten years; Mikhail Khodorkovsky is the victim of a personal vendetta from Putin the KGBist”.

Zoïa Svetova

Zoïa Svetova and Zara (on right)

“Les innocents seront coupables”, Collection Les Moutons Noirs, François Bourin Editeur, 297 pages, 22 euros. Available here (online book store, in French)