Introduction

The criminal case at the heart of the "Yukos Affair" started with the arrest of Platon Lebedev in June 2003 and culminated in May 2005 with the reading of the 600 page plus sentence of Mikhail Khodorkovsky ("K"), Platon Lebedev ("L") and their onetime colleague Vladimir Krainov by the Meschansky District court. This comment, a further addition to a series of comments on legal aspects of the Yukos Affair reviews the Sentence and the first appeal of the Sentence, handed down by the court of cassation on September 22, 2005. The premise of this series of comments is that regardless ...