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Court to consider appeal to reduce jail term for Platon Lebedev on December 14

Judge of the Velsk district court sent the notification to inform the participants about the consideration date

ARKHANGELSK, November 16 (Itar-Tass) — The Arkhangelsk regional court plans to consider the attorney's appeal as well as the prosecutor's other appeal on December 14, 10:00 Moscow time, to reduce the imprisonment term for ex-head of the MENATEP company Platon Lebedev, his attorney Larisa Vazerkina told Itar-Tass on Friday.

Judge Nikolai Raspopov of the Velsk district court sent the notification to inform the participants about the consideration date. He also set the deadline to appeal against the prosecutor's motion for November 29. "We have not decided yet whether to use the right. There is time to think," Vazerkina said.

On November 1, the Velsk district court satisfied the attorney's appeal, reducing the term from 13 to ten years in connection with the changes of a number of Criminal Code articles. The prosecutor asked to reduce the term to eleven years and three months.

If the ruling of the court remains in force, Lebedev may be released on July 1, 2013.

On November 12, his attorney made an appeal to the Arkhangelsk regional court's panel of judges, asking to set the final term taking into account the period served by the moment of the decision on the appeal. On November 6, the district prosecutor appealed in connection with the excessive reduction of the term.

The Velsk district court considered the case for the second time. On August 8, the court partially satisfied the attorneys' appeal and reduced the term to nine years and eight months. However, the attorneys, who insisted on immediate release of Lebedev, and the prosecutor, who insisted on less reduction to eleven years and three month, appealed against the ruling.

On September 21, the Arkhangelsk regional court cancelled the decision, believing the sentence was too mild, and returned the case back to Velsk to consider it by other judges.

On December 30, 2010, Moscow's Khamovniki district court sentenced former YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and former MENATEP head Platon Lebedev to 14 years' imprisonment for oil theft and money laundering. Later, the Moscow city court reduced the sentence by a year. Thus, with the sentence imposed in 2005, Lebedev's imprisonment term will expire in 2016. He serves his term in a prison in Velsk, the Arkhangelsk Region.