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Rights Council: Free Khodorkovsky

The Moscow Times

In a stinging rebuke of the justice system, the Kremlin’s human rights council said Wednesday that former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev had been jailed illegally in their second trial and their verdicts should be overturned.

Moreover, the legal system should be reformed to avoid a repeat of similar cases, the council said in a 400-page report based on the findings of nine state-employed and independent experts, both domestic and foreign.

The council’s decisions have been ignored in the past, but Wednesday’s report comes after two presidential candidates pledged to release Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, fueling new hopes that the two bitter enemies of Vladimir Putin’s government might finally be freed.