IV 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 588 
Expressing the sense of the United States House of Representatives that 
the trial by the Government of the Russian Federation of Mikhail 
Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev constitutes a politically motivated 
case of selective arrest and prosecution that serves as a test of the 
rule of law and independence of Russia’s judicial system. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 26, 2009 
Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. WOLF, and Mr. WEXLER) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the United States House of Rep-
resentatives that the trial by the Government of the 
Russian Federation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon 
Lebedev constitutes a politically motivated case of selec-
tive arrest and prosecution that serves as a test of the 
rule of law and independence of Russia’s judicial system. 
Whereas, on April 1, 2009, President Obama and President 
Medvedev issued a joint statement affirming that ‘‘[i]n 
our relations with each other, we also seek to be guided 
by the rule of law, respect for fundamental freedoms and 
human rights, and tolerance for different views’’; 
Whereas the United States and the Russian Federation will 
continue the dialogue on these issues in a spirit of co-
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•HRES 588 IH 
operation at an upcoming summit to be held in June 
2009; 
Whereas it has been the long-held position of the United 
States to support the development of democracy, rule of 
law, judicial independence, freedom, and respect for 
human rights in the Russian Federation; 
Whereas Russian President Medvedev has called Russia a 
country of ‘‘legal nihilism’’ and issued a new foreign pol-
icy doctrine citing ‘‘the supremacy of law in international 
relations’’ as one of Russia’s top priorities; 
Whereas two of the most prominent cases of Russian abuse 
of civil liberties and injustice involve the Yukos Oil Com-
pany, its president, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his busi-
ness partner, Platon Lebedev, who were convicted and 
sentenced in May 2005 to serve nine years in a remote 
penal camp; 
Whereas Russian authorities confiscated Yukos assets and as-
signed ownership to a state company that is chaired by 
an official in the Kremlin, harassed, exiled, persecuted, 
and imprisoned many Yukos officers and legal represent-
atives, and issued a series of court rulings against 
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev that violate both Russian do-
mestic law and international legal norms; 
Whereas at a press conference in May 2005, President 
George Bush stated ‘‘it appeared to us, or at least people 
in my Administration, that it looked like [Mikhail 
Khodorkovsky] had been judged guilty prior to having a 
fair trial. In other words, he was put in prison, and then 
was tried’’; 
Whereas the 2005 U.S. Department of State Human Rights 
Report confirmed that ‘‘the arrest and conviction of 
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•HRES 588 IH 
Khodorkovsky raised concerns about the rule of law, in-
cluding the independence of the courts, the right to due 
process, the sanctity of contracts and property rights and 
the lack of a predictable tax regime’’; 
Whereas Amnesty International, Freedom House, and other 
prominent international human rights organizations have 
cited 
the 
conviction 
and 
imprisonment 
of 
Mr. 
Khodorkovsky as evidence of the arbitrary and political 
use of the legal system and the lack of a truly inde-
pendent judiciary in today’s Russian Federation; 
Whereas governments, courts, journalists, and human rights 
organizations around the world have expressed concern 
about the prosecution, trial, imprisonment, and treatment 
of the individuals in the Yukos case, and have called on 
President Medvedev to honor his pledge to end ‘‘legal ni-
hilism’’ in his country; 
Whereas, on February 5, 2007, on the eve of their eligibility 
for parole, Russian prosecutors brought new charges 
against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, accusing them of 
embezzling $20 billion in Yukos oil revenues; 
Whereas in May 2007, the Prosecutor General in Moscow at-
tempted to disbar Karrinna Moskalenko, one of Russia’s 
most distinguished and renown human rights lawyers and 
defense counsel to Mr. Khodorkovsky, in apparent re-
prisal for actions she had taken on behalf of her client; 
Whereas in August 2007, Switzerland’s highest court denied 
Russian authorities access to Yukos documents on the 
basis that the case against Yukos and its principal execu-
tives 
and 
core 
shareholders, 
specifically 
Mr. 
Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev, had a ‘‘political and dis-
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criminatory character . . . undermined by the infringe-
ment of human rights and the right to defense’’; 
Whereas courts in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Cy-
prus, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, and Switzerland have de-
scribed the Yukos proceeding as politically motivated and 
have rejected motions from Russian prosecutors seeking 
the extradition of Yukos officials or materials for use in 
trials in Russia; 
Whereas, on October 25, 2007, the European Court of 
Human Rights ruled that Mr. Lebedev’s rights to liberty 
and security were violated during his arrest and subse-
quent pretrial detention, and ordered Russia to pay him 
$14,230 as compensation; 
Whereas, on March 13, 2008, the European Parliament 
issued a resolution calling on the Russian President to 
‘‘review the treatment of imprisoned public figures 
(among 
them 
Mikhail 
Khodorkovsky 
and 
Platon 
Lebedev), whose imprisonment has been assessed by most 
observers as having been politically motivated’’; 
Whereas in July 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev said it 
was essential that Russia ‘‘take all necessary means to 
strengthen the independence of judges’’ since ‘‘it goes 
without saying that pressure is applied, influence is ex-
erted, and direct bribery is often used’’; 
Whereas, on August 22, 2008, Mr. Khodorkovsky was denied 
parole on the grounds that he refused to take part in vo-
cational training in sewing and for his alleged failure to 
keep his hands behind his back during a jail walk; 
Whereas, on October 8, 2008, Mr. Khodorkovsky was placed 
in solitary confinement for 12 days for giving a written 
interview to the Russian edition of Esquire magazine, de-
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spite the fact that the interview had previously been ap-
proved; 
Whereas, on October 25, 2008, the U.S. Department of State 
issued a statement marking the fifth anniversary of Mr. 
Khodorkovsky’s arrest, stating ‘‘the conduct of the cases 
against Khodorkovsky and his associates has eroded Rus-
sia’s reputation and public confidence in Russian legal 
and judicial institutions’’; 
Whereas, on December 22, 2008, the European Court of 
Human Rights ordered the release of the terminally ill 
former Yukos oil executive Vasily Aleksanyan, who had 
been held in detention since April 6, 2006, despite re-
peated orders by the European Court that Mr. 
Aleksanyan be treated in a humane fashion for cancer 
and AIDS; 
Whereas in February 2009, Andrei Illarianov, former chief 
economic advisor to President Putin, stated that ‘‘[o]ne 
of the best known political prisoners is Mr. Khodorkovsky 
who has been sentenced to 9 years in the Siberian camp 
Krasnokamensk on the basis of purely fabricated case 
against him and his oil company Yukos’’; 
Whereas, on February 24, 2009, human rights lawyer Karina 
Moskalenko, said that ‘‘[a]ll verdicts are possible in this 
country. But for people like Khodorkovsky, everything is 
already planned out and decided as long as the political 
will does not change’’; 
Whereas, on February 25, 2009, Olga Kudeshkina, former 
Moscow court judge who was dismissed from her duties 
in 2004, stated that Moscow City Court ‘‘has turned into 
an institution of settling political, commercial and other 
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scores’’ and that ‘‘nobody can be sure that the case will 
be resolved in accordance with the law’’; 
Whereas, on April 2, 2009, Senator Ben Cardin, chair of the 
Helsinki Commission, issued a statement in the United 
States Senate in which he noted that ‘‘the Council of Eu-
rope, Freedom House and Amnesty International, among 
others, have concluded that Mr. Khodorkovsky was 
charged and imprisoned in a process that did not follow 
the rule of law and was politically influenced . . .’’ and 
that ‘‘the current charges . . . amount to legal 
hooliganism highlight the petty meanness of the senior 
government officials behind this travesty of justice . . . 
should be dropped and the new trial should be aban-
doned’’; 
Whereas, on April 10, 2009, the New York Times wrote an 
editorial noting that the new charges and trial against 
Mr. Khodorkovsky ‘‘are for show, intended only to keep 
[him] and his colleague in prison forever’’; 
Whereas, on April 11, 2009, the Washington Post wrote, ‘‘If 
Mr. Medvedev allows [the Khodorkovsky trial] to go for-
ward to its scripted conclusion—a lengthy extension of 
Mr. Khodorkovsky’s sentence to a Siberian prison 
camp—the point will be proved that Russia still has no 
rule of law but only a ruler’’; 
Whereas, on April 21, 2009, Freedom House, Amnesty Inter-
national, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, the 
International League for Human Rights, the Lantos 
Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, and the 
Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human 
Rights joined in a letter to President Medvedev in which 
they noted ‘‘the serious human rights concerns raised by 
the case so far’’ and call on the Russian Government to 
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‘‘ensure 
that 
international 
observers 
are 
allowed 
unhindered access to the courtroom’’ to monitor the trial, 
to ‘‘ensure that the rule of law is upheld’’ and that it 
‘‘meets the standards of the Russian Constitution and 
international law.’’; 
Whereas the selective disregard for the rule of law by Russian 
officials undermines the standing and status of the Rus-
sian Federation among the democratic nations of the 
world; and 
Whereas both Russia and the United States have recently 
elected new presidents that provide the opportunity to re-
view past policies and pursue a new era of mutual co-
operation: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev 
are prisoners who have been denied basic due proc-
ess rights under international law and the laws of 
the Russian Federation for political reasons; 
(2) in light of the record of selective prosecu-
tion, politicization, and abuse of process involved in 
their cases, and as a demonstration of Russia’s com-
mitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of 
law, the new criminal charges brought by Russian 
authorities against Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. 
Lebedev should be withdrawn; 
(3) the standing of the Russian Federation as 
a nation supporting democracy, freedom of expres-
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sion, an independent judiciary, human rights, and 
the rule of law would be validated by paroling these 
two individuals, both of whom have served more 
than half their sentences; and 
(4) the Russian Federation is encouraged to 
take these actions to support democratic principles 
and human rights in furtherance of a new and more 
positive relationship between the United States and 
Russia and a new era of mutual cooperation. 
Æ 
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