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Supreme Court institutes review proceedings over Khodorkovsky plea

Lebedev cancelled the verdict of the judge, who denied satisfying the foresaid supervisory appeals and instituted review proceedings

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, July 24 (Itar-Tass) — Chairman of the Russian Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev instituted review proceedings over the pleas from the former YUKOS CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former MENATEP CEO, Platon Lebedev against the verdict of the Khamovnichesky District Court, spokesman of the Supreme Court Pavel Odintsov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

“Upon trying supervisory appeals from Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, Chairman of the Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev cancelled the verdict of the judge, who denied satisfying the foresaid supervisory appeals and instituted review proceedings, passing the appeals together with the criminal case to try in the presidium of the Moscow City Court,” he underlined.

The chairman of the Supreme Court has taken this decision on Tuesday, he said. The full text of the ruling will be made public at the website of the Supreme Court soon.

For their part, the lawyers of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are not satisfied with the transfer of the supervisory appeal to the presidium of the Moscow City Court. The lawyers do not trust “in any instance of the Moscow City Court and insist on trying this appeal directly in the legal penal for criminal cases in the Russian Supreme Court without its preliminary transfer for trying in the presidium of the Moscow City Court,” they said. The lawyers noted that the courts of all instances have made blatant violations of the requirements of the law before. The Supreme Court has already informed the chairman of the Moscow City Court about them.

“The appeal passed for trying in the presidium of the Moscow City Court will not correspond to instituting criminal proceedings and will entail easily predicted negative consequences, particularly the deadline to try this criminal case will be prolonged groundlessly, as it was dragged out in the unprecedented way even without it,” the lawyers believe.

On December 30, 2010, the Khamovnichesky District Curt of Moscow sentenced Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev to 14 years in prison for oil misappropriation and money laundering. The defendants and their lawyers appealed the verdict and the Moscow City Court commuted their term in prison by one year. So, with due account of the verdict passed in 2005 the term in prison for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will expire in 2016.

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