Okhotin’s lawyers, Vladimir Ryakhovski and Anatoli Pchelintsev, sharply cross-examined the men in an effort to expose inconsistencies in their rendition of the day’s events.

“As soon as the defense started asking questions they started stumbling, especially the porter,” Sonnenberg said. “It was prompting—he had made a mistake and he had to correct himself.”

At one point during the prosecutor’s questioning, the porter contradicted the agents’ testimony as to the specific room in which Okhotin had revealed the money and the forms stating its purpose. After a careful round of queries from Judge Yakovlev, the porter changed his answer to line up with that of his superiors.

Sonnenberg said he suspected that the absence on Wednesday of another porter whom the prosecution had announced as a witness was a deliberate move to avoid further contradictions or miscues.

Standing Up for Himself

In defense cross-examination and Okhotin’s own testimony, which comprised the hearing’s second half, the lawyers and the divinity student reiterated his case that four months of trouble had resulted from one single error—which, they said, would have been instantly avoided had Okhotin properly understood Sheremetyevo II’s corridor system.

Yakovlev, stone-faced for the first half of the proceedings, at first appeared disinclined to follow this line of argument. During the defense attorneys’ cross-examination, he swiftly cut off several questions which Okhotin said he thought were “key” to his case.

Despite the fact that the judge had gone so far as to laugh at one of the customs agents earlier in the trial, Okhotin said he was shaken by his brusque attitude to the defense lawyers.

“This made me think this was not going to be fair,” Okhotin said afterwards, adding that the judge seemed to display “overt hostility” towards his cause early in the trial.

Okhotin said he was particularly disturbed by the judge’s decision to disallow any audio recordings or cameras, and his stern attitude while requesting Okhotin’s name and address more than once.

“Obviously there’s a subterranean intensity to all of this,” Okhotin said. “But on the surface you try to remain calm.”

But once he took the stand, he said he saw a different side of Yakovlev.

“I think the case that we were making and the evidence there was compelling enough that if the judge continued the way he began the trial it would be obvious to everyone that he was biased,” Okhotin said afterward. “There was a change.”

After Okhotin gave his statement, laying out his version of March 29’s events, the prosecutors repeatedly and vigorously asked how a man fairly familiar with travel to Russia could have made the mistake Okhotin claims.

Sonnenberg said that as unsympathetic as he seemed towards the defense attorneys’ questions, he was no kinder to the prosecutor’s cross-examination.