[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 92 (Thursday, June 18, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6817-S6818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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  SENATE RESOLUTION 189--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT THE 
TRIAL BY THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT OF BUSINESSMEN 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 THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF RUSSIA

  Mr. WICKER (for himself and Mr. Cardin) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 189

       Whereas on April 1, 2009, President Barack Obama and 
     President Dmitry 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 Russia, in a spirit of 
     cooperation, will continue the dialogue on the issues 
     affirmed in such joint statement 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 policy 
     doctrine citing ``the supremacy of law in international 
     relations'' as one of the top priorities of Russia;
       Whereas 2 prominent cases involve the Yukos Oil Company and 
     its president, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partner, Platon 
     Lebedev, who were convicted and sentenced in May 2005 to 
     serve 9 years in a remote penal camp;
       Whereas Russian authorities confiscated Yukos assets and 
     assigned ownership to a state company that is chaired by an 
     official in the Kremlin; harassed, exiled, persecuted, and 
     imprisoned many Yukos officers and legal representatives; and 
     issued a series of court rulings against Mr. Khodorkovsky and 
     Mr. Lebedev that violate international legal norms;
       Whereas at a press conference in May 2005, President George 
     Bush stated, ``it appeared to . . . people in my 
     Administration, that . . . [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 on October 25, 2005, Congressmen Roger Wicker and 
     Tom Lantos introduced H. Res. 525, which noted the actions 
     that the Russian government had taken with respect to Yukos, 
     Mr. Khodorkovsky, and Mr. Lebedev, and called upon Russian 
     authorities to prove that the cases were not politically 
     motivated, that the Russian judicial system is truly 
     independent and not simply an instrument of the Kremlin, and 
     that the state was not engaged in a campaign to selectively 
     reclaim or re-nationalize private enterprises;
       Whereas on November 18, 2005, Senators Joe Biden, Barack 
     Obama, and John McCain introduced S. Res. 322, which called 
     the cases against Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev 
     ``politically motivated'', noted that Mr. Khodorkovsky and 
     Mr. Lebedev had not been accorded fair, transparent, and 
     impartial treatment, and deplored their transfer to remote 
     prison camps;
       Whereas Amnesty International, Freedom House, and other 
     prominent international human rights organizations have cited 
     the conviction and imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky as 
     evidence of the arbitrary and political use of the legal 
     system and the lack of a truly independent judiciary in the 
     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 nihilism'' in 
     Russia;
       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 revenues;
       Whereas in May 2007 the Prosecutor General in Moscow 
     attempted to disbar Karinna Moskalenko, one of Russia's most 
     distinguished and renown human rights lawyers and defense 
     counsel to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in apparent reprisal for 
     actions she had taken on behalf of her client;
       Whereas in August 2007 the highest court of Switzerland 
     denied Russian authorities access to Yukos documents on the 
     basis that the case against Yukos and its principal 
     executives and core shareholders, specifically Mikhail 
     Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, had a ``political and 
     discriminatory character. . .undermined by the infringement 
     of human rights and the right to defense'';
       Whereas courts in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Cyprus, 
     Liechtenstein, Lithuania, and Switzerland have described 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 Platon Lebedev's rights to liberty and 
     security were violated during his arrest and subsequent 
     pretrial detention;
       Whereas the 2008 Department of State Human Rights Report 
     stated: ``The arrest and conviction of Khodorkovsky raised 
     concerns about the right to due process and the

[[Page S6818]]

     rule of law, including the independence of courts and the 
     lack of a predictable tax regime.'';
       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 
     exerted, and direct bribery is often used'';
       Whereas on August 22, 2008, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was denied 
     parole on the grounds that he refused to take part in 
     vocational training in sewing and that he allegedly failed to 
     keep his hands behind his back during a jail walk;
       Whereas on October 25, 2008, the State Department issued a 
     statement marking the fifth anniversary of Mikhail 
     Khodorkovsky's arrest, stating ``the conduct of the cases 
     against Khodorkovsky and his associates 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 repeated 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 Vladimir Putin, stated that 
     ``[o]ne of the best known political prisoners is Mikhail 
     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, 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 
     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 Senate in 
     which he noted that ``the Council of Europe, 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 and highlight the petty meanness of the 
     senior government officials behind this travesty of justice. 
     . .should be dropped and the new trial should be abandoned'';
       Whereas on April 10, 2009, the New York Times published an 
     editorial noting that the new charges and trial against 
     Mikhail 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 forward 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 
     International, 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 note ``the serious 
     human rights concerns raised by the case so far'' and call on 
     the Russian Government 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 the selective disregard for the rule of law by 
     Russian officials undermines the standing and status of the 
     Russian 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 review 
     past policies and pursue a new era of mutual cooperation: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
       (1) Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev are prisoners 
     who have been denied basic due process rights under 
     international law for political reasons;
       (2) in light of the record of selective prosecution, 
     politicization, and abuse of process involved in their cases, 
     and as a demonstration of Russia's commitment 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 expression, an independent 
     judiciary, human rights, and the rule of law would move 
     closer to validation by paroling Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. 
     Lebedev, 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.

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