Her son’s punishment is part of a pattern, Marina Khodorkovsky tells Novaya gazeta

Zoya Yeroshok, Novaya gazeta, 13.10.2008

On Thursday I rang Marina Philippovna and warmly congratulated her on her golden wedding. “We’ve already received congratulations. So to speak,” she replied quietly.

At 6 am Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s parents received a text message on their mobile from the lawyer in Chita. It was very brief: “Are you awake?” They immediately understood that something had happened. From a phone conversation with the lawyer they learned that their son had been sent to the punishment cell for 12 days for the discussion with writer Boris Akunin, published in the October edition of Esquire.

“We talked to the lawyer,” said Marina Philippovna. “Then Boris and I poured a measure of heart medicine into small tumblers and wished each other well. Fifty years ago we marked this day with champagne, I said: today with a sedative.”

Once Yury Schmidt told me: “When people asked me what my profession is, I used to say I’m a defence attorney. Now I answer, I am Khodorkovsky’s defence lawyer. They are different professions, quite different.”

And as a prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky also has quite a different occupation to a simple prisoner who is not called Khodorkovsky. In the Krasnokamensk penal colony, for instance, Khodorkovsky had to note every step he took (literally!) so that he could prove to the local court, following the latest reprimand, that he had done this and not that! In the colony a warder followed him, and him alone, everywhere (again, literally) and only once left his ward in peace, exactly at the time when his face was slashed by another prisoner. For a single conversation with Khodorkovsky the local priest Father Sergy was first sent a thousand kilometres away from Krasnokamensk and then, less than a month later, forbidden to serve any longer as a priest.

During almost five years of imprisonment since 25 October 2003 Khodorkovsky was sent countless times to the punishment cell. Each time the punishment fell on a special day in his life. On 26 June 2006, his birthday, a lemon was supposedly found in his cabinet and Khodorkovsky was given 10 days in the punishment cell. Whether there really was a lemon is irrelevant. The important thing was to remember to give him a “present”.

Esquire appeared a week ago. Why was Khodorkovsky sent to the punishment cell for that publication neither later or earlier but on 9 October itself? “They could not do it earlier or later. Our golden wedding was on 9 October. Someone keeps track of all our family dates and prepares for them in good time,” says Marina Philippovna.

“On 21-22 August the court was considering his parole application. Misha was brought to the courtroom directly from the punishment cell. Why did they put him there? Prison rules say that when the prisoners stand by their cells and the prison director walks past they must say: There are two (or three) of us in the cell, and so on. That procedure went off normally. Misha said in the corridor: There are two of us in the cell ... Then the director entered their cell and at that moment Misha did not say, There are two of us in the cell. Misha was laughing when he told the court: ‘On entering our cell the director saw there were two of us, not seventy.’ ‘Two!’ said Misha. And counted one, two on his fingers. It made no difference, off to the punishment cell!”

20 December 2006. Marina Philippovna had only just returned from Krasnokamensk. She was almost happy, joyful. Her son was in good shape, working (sewing mittens), reading a lot and writing. That night, a phone call. Khodorkovsky had been urgently transferred to Chita: a second case, in other words.

Marina Philippovna: “Couldn’t he have studied that second case in the penal colony? Why do it just before New Year? It was not just the ten days until New Year: for almost all of January nothing happened with the investigation. But they moved Misha in such a rush that he did not manage to take anything with him, not even warm shoes. He then told Akunin in his interview: you get ready quickly and move, leaving behind your notes and favourite books.

“Akunin admitted that he was afraid to ring me after we heard about the punishment cell. What if thought he was to blame? However, I’m quite sure that if there had not been his publication they would have found some other mythical lemon.”

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was put in the punishment cell, incidentally, exactly six days before the appeal against the refusal to grant him parole was due to be heard.

From the statement issued by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s defence team:

“The prisoner has the right to unlimited access to his defence lawyers who, in turn, may read him any documents, and write down any of his words, that they consider necessary for the defence. All of that lies beyond the competence of the administration of the pre-trial remand centre and cannot be classified as a violation of established procedures by the prisoner.”

And this is only one of responses from the Internet community: leosat writes

“I have no doubt that the local bosses did this in order to protect themselves, just in case those mentioned in the article are annoyed, though Mikhail Khodorkovsky committed no violations in giving that interview. You can have different opinions of Khodorkovsky but you can remain a human being even as a prison warder. Or is that not possible?”

PS Marina Philippovna managed to pass a message to her son through his lawyers: he should not be worried, they would certainly celebrate their golden wedding, all would be well and many guests would come.

PPS Last Saturday that is exactly what happened.