"This happened almost two months before the expiry of the term and the defense was not prepared for this," noted Karina Moskalenko representing Khodorkovsky's interests.
She cited the recent decision of the Constitutional Court, making it clear to district courts how terms of keeping in custody should be prolonged. The recent ruling of the Meshchansky court, in her opinion, utterly contradicts the Constitutional court's decision.
The term of Khodorkovsky's detainment was originally to expire on May 14, 2005 but the presiding judge Irina Kolesnikova took upon herself, without awaiting any appeal on the part of the prosecution, to prolong Khodorkovsky's stay in the detention cell for another two months until July 14.
The motive Kolesnikova was guided by was that the criminal proceedings were not to end before May 14 while Khodorkovsky, with his wide foreign links, could, on being set free, go into hiding and impact the witnesses.
The court plans to read out a verdict on April 27.
The prosecutor Dmitry Shokhin has asked the court to sentence Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to ten years in general-security prison and to deprive them of the right to be associated with federal government offices or local self-government for three years.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are charged in accordance with seven articles of the criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including tax evasion and large-scale fraud.
