MOSCOW, March 25, 2004. (RIA Novosti) - The Moscow Bar Association has recommended to the defense lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky that they appeal to the Russian Constitutional Court against what they see as unlawful seizure of defense files by personnel of the Matrosskaya Tishina jail where the former Yukos CEO is being held in pre-trial detention.
Matrosskaya Tishina staffers have seized defense files from the lawyers Yevgeny Baru, Yuri Schmidt and Olga Artyukhova, says Henry Reznik, President of the Moscow Bar Association. The law identifies objects that may be handed over to inmates, but it does not list objects whose transfer is banned, he claims.
Last December, Reznik sent a request to the Justice Ministry that it specify which objects fall under the category of "banned." No response has come since then. Now the Moscow Bar Association is going to forward one more such inquiry letter to the Minister of Justice.
