Jailed Yukos Shareholder Accuses Prosecutor of Protracting Trial

Before the court hearings into the case of Yukos’s top shareholders Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev opened on Monday, the latter read out a written statement criticizing the state prosecutor Dmitry Shokhin for deliberately protracting the proceedings.

“The state prosecutor abuses confidence of court by distorting the purport of certain documents that he reads out,” Lebedev’s statement reads. Besides, according to Menatep chairman, the prosecutor reads out information “not included in the files altogether, takes documents out of the context and re-reads certain documents several times, in doing so considerably protracting the proceedings.”

The statement was not attached to the case file. The defendant explained that he had read it out for the protocol of the court session, RIA-Novosti reports.

Khodorkovsky and Levedev face charges under seven articles of the Criminal Code, including tax evasion and fraud. On Monday the court continued examining evidence presented by prosecutors in the case.


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