MOSCOW, August 8 (Itar-Tass) —— The Velsk District Court in the Arkhangelsk region will announce its decision on the appeal of the defense of former Menatep Group head Platon Lebedev for alleviating the sentence and releasing the prisoner.
The lawyers pointed to the alleviated penalty for money laundering (Part 3, Article 174.1 of the Russian Criminal Code) and asked the court for cutting the sentence of Lebedev to the time he had already served and for setting him free.
The prosecutor partially supported the petition on Tuesday. He agreed that the article had been really amended but said that the social danger of the Lebedev deed gave no reasons for cutting his sentence to the already served time.
The Moscow Khamovniki District Court sentenced Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to 14 years in prison for crude embezzlement and money laundering on December 30, 2010. The convicts and their lawyers appealed the sentence, and the Moscow City Court cut the sentence by one year. Together with the sentence passed in 2005, the total prison time of Khodorokovsky and Lebedev will expire in 2016. Lebedev is serving time in the Arkhangelsk region, and Khodorkovsky in Karelia.