IV 
112TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 327 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the trial and 
subsequent convictions of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev 
by the Government of the Russian Federation constitute a politically 
motivated case of selective arrest and prosecution which put in serious 
doubt the rule of law and the independence of Russia’s judicial system. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 23, 2011 
Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Mr. WOLF, Mr. 
PITTS, and Mrs. MYRICK) submitted the following resolution; which was 
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the 
trial 
and 
subsequent 
convictions 
of 
Mikhail 
Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev by the Government 
of the Russian Federation constitute a politically moti-
vated case of selective arrest and prosecution which put 
in serious doubt the rule of law and the independence 
of Russia’s judicial system. 
Whereas, on April 1, 2009, President Obama and Russian 
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’’; 
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•HRES 327 IH 
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 President Medvedev decried an attitude of ‘‘legal ni-
hilism’’ in Russian society and government and issued a 
new foreign policy doctrine citing ‘‘the supremacy of law 
in international relations’’ as one of Russia’s top prior-
ities; 
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 Mr. 
Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev that violate both Russian 
domestic law and international legal norms; 
Whereas at a press conference in May 2005, President 
George W. 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 United States Department of State 
Human Rights Report confirmed that ‘‘the arrest and 
conviction of Khodorkovsky raised concerns about the 
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•HRES 327 IH 
rule of law, including the independence of the courts, the 
right to due process, the sanctity of contracts and prop-
erty 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 Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev, accusing 
them of embezzling $20,000,000,000 in Yukos oil reve-
nues; 
Whereas in May 2007, the Prosecutor General in Moscow at-
tempted to disbar Karrinna Moskalenko, one of Russia’s 
most distinguished and renowned human rights lawyers 
and defense counsel to Mr. Khodorkovsky, in apparent 
reprisal 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 Medvedev said it was essen-
tial that Russia ‘‘take all necessary means to strengthen 
the independence of judges’’ since ‘‘it goes without saying 
that pressure is applied, influence is exerted, 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 United States Depart-
ment of State issued a statement marking the fifth anni-
versary of Mr. Khodorkovsky’s arrest, stating ‘‘the con-
duct of the cases against Khodorkovsky and his associ-
ates has eroded Russia’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 
Karinna Moskalenko, said that ‘‘[a]ll verdicts are possible 
in this country. But for people like Khodorkovsky, every-
thing 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 
scores’’ and that ‘‘nobody can be sure that the 
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[Khodorkovsky] 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 . . .’’ that 
‘‘the current charges . . . amount to legal hooliganism 
and highlight the petty meanness of the senior govern-
ment officials behind this travesty of justice.’’ and ‘‘[the 
charges] should be dropped and the new trial should be 
abandoned’’; 
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 called on the Russian Government 
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to ‘‘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, on May 21, 2009, the European Court on Human 
Rights declared admissible Mr. Khodorkovsky’s applica-
tion, alleging that his arrest, detention, and prosecution 
were politically motivated as well as violations of the pro-
hibition on torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, 
and the right to liberty and security; 
Whereas Russian legal experts opined, in a October 2009 re-
port prepared by the independent Center for Political 
Technologies in Moscow, that ‘‘The judiciary is perceived 
not to be independent, but entirely implanted into the 
state machine, ‘transparent’ for neither the civil society 
nor the mass media, or ‘ordinary people’ ’’ and they fore-
see that applications to the European Court will rise, as 
a result of citizens’ low confidence in their judicial sys-
tem; 
Whereas, on March 24, 2010, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a promi-
nent Russian human rights activist and founder of the 
Moscow Helsinki Group, lamented that Russian human 
rights workers and activists are in grave danger, and that 
the collaboration with international human rights entities 
is essential to their work; 
Whereas, on May 31, 2010, the Moscow Times published a 
letter, signed by prominent human rights activists such 
as former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel 
and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, which questioned 
Russia’s commitment to protecting and fulfilling its 
human rights obligations and said that, ‘‘We ask [Presi-
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dent] Medvedev and urge the Russian government to pro-
tect people in danger and to ensure quick and effective 
investigations into the murders of human rights activists, 
journalists and independent-minded jurists.’’; 
Whereas, on December 15, 2010, Judge Viktor Danilkin de-
layed the verdict in the Khodorkovsky case until Decem-
ber 27, 2010, without any explanation; 
Whereas Prime Minister Putin appears to have interfered 
with the proceedings of the trial on numerous occasions, 
by publicly accusing Mr. Khodorkovsky of being a mur-
derer and, on December 16, 2010, one day after the inex-
plicable postponement, by preempting the verdict saying 
that ‘‘a thief belongs in prison’’; 
Whereas, on December 27, 2010, two years after the start of 
the second trial, Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev 
were found guilty of money laundering and embezzle-
ment; 
Whereas, on December 27, 2010, the White House issued a 
press release stating that, ‘‘We are troubled by the alle-
gations of serious due process violations, and what ap-
pears to be an abusive use of the legal system for im-
proper ends. The apparent selective application of the law 
to these individuals undermines Russia’s reputation as a 
country committed to deepening the rule of law.’’; 
Whereas, on December 30, 2010, Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. 
Lebedev were sentenced to a maximum of 14 years im-
prisonment, which conforms with the prosecutor’s de-
mands, and which, dating from their first arrest in 2003, 
will extend their imprisonment until 2017; 
Whereas, on New Year’s Eve 2010, during large rallies to 
peacefully protest restrictions on the freedom of assembly 
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and the court decision in the case against Mr. 
Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev, the police detained some 
130 people in Moscow and St. Petersburg, including 
prominent opposition leaders, some of whom were subse-
quently arrested and jailed; 
Whereas, on February 14, 2011, an interview in Gazetta.ru 
with Natalya Vasilyeva, the former assistant to judge 
Viktor Danilkin, confirmed allegations of judicial inter-
ference and revealed that the judge was pressured in his 
deliberations and a verdict was imposed from above; 
Whereas, on February 17, 2011, the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay observed 
that the ‘‘Rule of law, including accountability and pro-
tection of rights for all citizens and non-citizens on Rus-
sian territory, is an essential prerequisite for true democ-
racy, peace and development.’’; 
Whereas, on March 10, 2011, Vice President Joe Biden deliv-
ered a speech in Moscow and stressed that the United 
States ‘‘will continue to object when we think human 
rights are violated or democracy and the rule of law is 
undermined.’’; 
Whereas an independent, impartial, accountable, and effective 
judicial system is fundamental to protecting and uphold-
ing the rights of Russian citizens; 
Whereas Article 15(4) of the Russian Constitution provides 
that ‘‘. . . commonly recognized principles and norms of 
international law and the international treaties of the 
Russian Federation shall be a component part of its legal 
system. If an international treaty of the Russian Federa-
tion stipulates other rules than those stipulated by the 
law, the rules of the international treaty shall apply.’’; 
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Whereas the Russian Federation has ratified the European 
Convention on Human Rights, the International Cov-
enant on Civil and Political Rights, the International 
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and 
the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhu-
man or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and 
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: 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) as a demonstration of Russia’s commitment 
to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, the 
Prosecutor General should— 
(A) conduct an official and impartial inves-
tigation into the allegations of judicial inter-
ference and misconduct; 
(B) initiate criminal proceedings to bring 
violators to justice; and 
(C) appeal the guilty verdict as delivered 
on December 27, 2010; 
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