MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti)- Just after hearings began Thursday in the appeal of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, judges granted a defense request to recess.
This is the fourth attempt to start appeal hearings on the fraud and tax evasion conviction in May. The repeated postponements were due to the illness of Khodorkovsky lawyer Genrikh Padva, who at the time was the only one authorized to represent him in the appeal case. Padva arrived at the court Thursday, along with long-time Khodorkovsky attorney Yury Schmidt, whom Khodorkovsky has now also permitted to represent his interests.
Lebedev has refused to attend the hearings.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were sentenced to nine years in prison in a case that their backers say was the Kremlin's way of quashing Khodorkovsky's political ambitions and increasing the state's influence in the key oil sector. Khodorkovsky has spent 23 months in jail, while Lebedev has been behind bars for two years.
Khodorkovsky's foreign defense lawyer Robert Amsterdam said he was pessimistic that the appeal would do much good, but he said the defense filed the appeal to prove it has exhausted all legal opportunities and move the case on to the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights.
On Wednesday, Padva arrived at the pre-trial detention center where Khodorkovsky was being detained with an agreement on representing the oil tycoon in his appeal, but was denied access to his client.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers said the court was trying to rush through the appeal to prevent their client from getting registered as a candidate in a December by-election to the State Duma, parliament's lower house.
