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The week did not distinguish itself with anything unusual.
The prosecutors continued reading materials of the criminal case,
switching from one volume to another.
On Thursday, they stopped on Volume No. 34.
In the summer of 2007,
the media discussed the scandal
relating to PricewaterhouseCoopers calling back its audit reports
and YUKOS financial accounting reporting.
Prosecutor Lakhtin provided explanations concerning the scandal.
It turns out that on June 14, 2007,
the general director of PricewaterhouseCoopers
received a request from Karimov, chief of the investigative team,
which stated that the audit firm came in possession of certain data
in the course of investigative actions
previously unknown to it.
Therefore, there emerged doubts about the reliability
of the audit reports.
The very next day, the General Prosecutor’s Office, the investigative team,
and Board Chairman Gerashchenko as well as bankruptcy manager Rebgun
received a letter from PricewaterhouseCoopers
calling back the audit reports.
In it, they also referred to some information
that had become known to the audit firm
in the course of investigative actions.
As of today, the defense team,
even having seen the materials of the criminal case,
has no access to the information.
And we do not know
what information received by the auditors
led to their calling back their report.
The defense wonders
how that will influence the criminal case being tried,
as the auditors have called back their report
but did not call back YUKOS financial and accounting reports.
It is precisely that reporting of YUKOS’s subsidiaries
and of the YUKOS Oil Company itself
that is cardinally important for the consideration
of criminal case materials,
whereas the audit report is of little importance.
And, of course, it would be good to know
what information has made the audit company make the decision
on calling back its report.
In principle, the audit report is not called back.
According to accepted standards, certain actions are carried out
to address all doubts relating to the newly obtained information.
However, the audit firm has not carried out any actions,
because the day after receiving information from the investigative agency
it forwarded to the recipients
listed above its letter calling back the audit reports.
This week, Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky
made a statement to the effect
that the chairman has long been paying no attention to the defense.
This prolonged reading
will hardly result in the chairman’s better knowledge of case materials.
Because the charges have not been made clear
and because the duration of the hearing has not been limited,
it is impossible to carry out defense,
as we do not know
from what we should be defending our clients.
And the judge has assumed the stance of noninterference into the process
that the prosecution has been imposing on us
for more than four months now.
On April 27,
when the prosecution began reading the proofs,
the chairman passed a regulation
on the request of the defense according to which
once a week the defense attorneys could get in touch with their clients
confidentially, outside the courtroom,
because it was practically impossible to communicate confidentially,
as escort guards were permanently finding themselves
next to the defense attorneys.
Therefore, once a week,
a day was given when the defense team
could deal with their clients at the pretrial detention facility.
The procedure has begun to be disrupted,
and this week Wednesday was not made available for communication.
Therefore, the defense team again had to request
a day for communication with the clients.
The request was granted,
and Friday was made available for communication.
We do not know what we are to expect next week,
as we do not know how many times
the chairman will let the prosecution read the same documents.
The only thing that both we and the defendants hope to have
is that when the defense reads its proofs,
it will not be restricted either as far as time
and repeated citing of the same documents
over and over again are concerned,
to observe the equality of the parties.