The court agreed with the former Yukos CEO that regulations regarding prisoners' rights to meeting with lawyers were illegal and invalid. Under the regulations, prisoners could meet with lawyers for no more than four hours and only if they were free from work.
The administration of the penal colony in the Siberian Region of Chita where Khodorkovsky is serving his eight-year term four times denied him a meeting with lawyers before 6.00 p.m. Khodorkovsky and his lawyers said such restrictions could be imposed only at the federal level.
The ex oil baron complained that these regulations violated his rights to qualified legal assistance and contradicted Russian and international legislation.
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were held in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center for more than a year during court proceedings. In May 2005, a Moscow court found them guilty of tax evasion and large-scale fraud, and sentenced them to nine years in a low-security prison. On September 22, the Moscow City Court reduced their terms to eight years.
