Cover Osteuropa 4/2011

In Osteuropa 4/2011

Mockery of Justice
The Second Trial of Khodorkovskii and Lebedev

Otto Luchterhandt


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

At the very moment when President Dmitrii Medvedev castigates Russia’s “legal nihilism” and calls on Russians to resist it, a Moscow court issues a verdict against the YUKOS managers Mikhail Khodorkovskii and Platon Lebedev, a verdict that surpasses its 2005 predecessor in arbitrariness and cynicism. This is the conclusion of a detailed analysis of the indictment, the facts of the case, the trial procedure, as well as the verdict. In contrast to the situation after the first trial, resistance is now stirring in parts of the elite.

(Osteuropa 4/2011, pp. 3–42)