On the decision of the court president Irina Kolesnikova, hearings on this case will not be held Wednesdays because the lawyers need a free day for confidential meetings with their clients.
On application from head of the international financial institution Menatep Platon Lebedev, the day-off is Wednesday. On Thursday, July 29, the court will continue looking into evidence from the prosecution.
Khodorkovski and Lebedev are accused on seven articles of the Criminal Code, such as major tax evasion and swindling.
According to the prosecution, Platon Lebedev (then the Menatep bank president and one of the board of directors of the MFO Menatep, the Russian-Swiss joint venture Russian Trust and Trade) in Moscow in 1994 joined the organised group of persons set up and led by Khodorkovski, chairman of the board of directors of the three financial institutions, so as to seize by swindling the shares of Russian enterprises during privatisation and, jointly with Khodorkovski, led the group during committing crimes.
According to the prosecution, the group included officials of the Menatep bank and other legal persons in control of the bank, Lebedev and Khodorkovski. Prosecution also cites as involved Chernyshova, chief of the Menatep privatisation sector, and Krainov of the MFO Menatep.
Krainov set up front legal persons and, the prosecution maintains, was the general director of the Volna front company, buying Apatite shares by swindling.
In turn, Chernyshova on Volna's behalf signed the contract for the purchase/sale of Apatite shares.
Thus, the prosecution says, "in the summer of 1994 Khodorkovski and Lebedev bought by swindling 20 percent of the OAO Apatite to a sum of over 283 million dollars". The sum of damage caused by Khodorkovski and Lebedev amounts to over one billion dollars, the prosecution says.
