Platon Lebedev attends the hearings of the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev case at Moscow's Meshchansky Court
Photo: Grigory Tambulov
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Platon Lebedev Expects Fake Law-Enforcers
// The YUKOS case
The defense of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, both sentenced to nine years in prison on Tuesday, got down to preparing appeals to be filed with the Moscow City Court yesterday. Meanwhile, Mr. Lebedev circulated through his lawyers a statement saying his enemies in the person of the state may use new provocations and even murder him.
Platon Lebedev’s lawyer Evgeny Baru told Kommersant correspondent yesterday that the activities of the defense had not ceased after the verdict of Meshchansky Court had been pronounced. “Everything is taking its course. Some lawyers have been working the documents, others have visited their clients. We were to Platon Lebedev’s yesterday and agreed on some tactic and technical issues.” The lawyers say that Lebedev intends to carry on: “He had no illusions. He is not panic-stricken either. We must work on. Platon Lebedev and his team have a firm plan of the further steps.”
On another note, Platon Lebedev circulated a message through his lawyers yesterday. Addressing his friends, Lebedev said: “It is perfectly clear that I have nothing to vindicate myself of. I will be proving the criminality of aims and methods of this fraud of the 21st century [he must be meaning the war of the authorities and law enforcement agencies on YUKOS.].” What is more, he claims that “these ‘fake law enforcers’ will stage new provocations to cover up the tracks of their crimes and abuse of authority, and they are capable of the elimination of me and Mikhail Khodorkovsky.”
It is understood that everyone, including the accused, their lawyers, the witnesses of the trial, the defendants’ relatives and the press, expected a more lenient sentence. Genrikh Padva, the leader of the defense of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, described yesterday his reaction to the verdict in an interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio in the following way: “I was really stunned. I certainly expected an accusatory verdict, thought if it was a prison sentence, then it would be no more that five years. I did not even dare to hope for a lighter sentence.” “We were aware there was an accusatory verdict in store for us,” lawyer Evgeny Baru told Kommersant. “But we were expecting more lenient terms even given that unmotivated approach of the court. Mr. Baru says that the defense took the sentence “with a feeling of a deep incomprehension, to put it mildly.” Genrikh Padva stated, in his turn: “I have been a lawyer since 1953. There were ups and downs of justice in this country during my lifetime but nothing of this kind has ever happened.”
The court mentioned some positive features of the defendants while reading out the operative part of the verdict but the judges not show how they had taken them into consideration. “On the one hand, the court took into account the poor health of Platon Lebedev, their [Lebedev and Khodorkovsky] good references, their being fathers and even grandfathers,” Evgeny Baru pointed out. “But it is unclear how it influenced the ruling of the court. How has the mitigation of the sentence reflected?” The lawyer finds it odd that the court handed down the same prison terms to the both accused. He is convinced that this fact alone testifies to the partiality and illegality of the verdict. “Nine years is a painful blow. It was not without reason that we asked to change the panel of judges during the trial some months ago. We realized that that court would be unable to give an objective evaluation and hand down an objective verdict,” the lawyer says. According to him, the defense supposed that “the court will at least try and create an illusion of the independence,” and in this case we would have different sentences, but it did not happen.
As Kommersant already pointed out, the defense is eligible to file an appeal with the Moscow City Court when the lawyers get all the minutes of the hearings. Given the volume of these minutes, this process may linger on, or the lawyers may be put into an awkward position by being provided with the minutes within the next few days. “So we will see how quickly the authorities need to secure the verdict,” Evgeny Baru says. He explained to Kommersant that they would also have to go into the minutes – both the defense and the defendants. It will take much time. However, the lawyer says he is not sure “that the same thing the familiarization of the case when we had time constrains will not repeat. The defense is convinced that the minutes must be carefully studied: “The verdict is based on heaven knows what. For example, on the testimony of investigators who were repeatedly questioned because their words were contradictory. For some reason or other, the court considered the witnesses of the defense privies but the investigators who testified – not.” Yet, the lawyer believes the defense would be able to file a full appeal with the Moscow City Court right away, and having studied the documents they may file additions to the first one.
As for the new charges “in legalization of criminally acquired billions of rubles” that the head of the information and PR department of Prosecutor General’s Office mentioned the other day, the defense is not ready yet to comment on them. The Prosecutor’s Office won’t share the details either. We should remind our readers that the investigation on 174 article of the Russian Criminal Code (Legalization of Money Criminally Acquired) was launched in December 2004 when the trial at Meshchansky Court was already underway. “The probe is still in progress, and there exist the secrecy of the inquest. The Prosecutor’s Office will announce all the details when it is possible,” the prosecutors told Kommersant.
Marina Lepina
All the Article in Russian as of June 02, 2005
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