The second trial against the former Yukos owners, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, is coming to an end. The trial has been going on in Moscow since March 2009. Before long, the hearing of the evidence will finish. Then the cases for the prosecution and the defence will be heard before the court has to pass its verdict. The verdict can still be appealed, but even given an appeal hearing, there will most likely be a legally binding verdict by the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
But what is so important about the outcome of this trial? After all, both of the accused have now spent just under seven years in prison. In their first trial, both were convicted of tax evasion and each was sentenced to eight years in a prison camp. On the basis of ill-founded pretexts, both were denied a legally possible early release on parole after having served half of their sentence. The initially agitated public reactions in the country and beyond its borders have long since faded into a resignation that is only rarely challenged, and then only by a small number of people, mostly those who do not hold much power. In brief, one might think that is does not matter how the trial turns out, as it has become politically meaningless. But this conclusion is wrong. On the contrary, the trial and its outcome are extremely political. I will try to explain why this is so, and why it could be worthwhile making some efforts to influence the outcome (although it is clear to me that the chances of doing so are very slight.)
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The German version of this commentary was first published in Russland-Analysen No 206. It was translated into English by the Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center.
