Thanking the media for their close attention, Platon Lebedev would like to correct a widespread and repeated misinterpretation of his February offer to help Aleksanyan.

A statement issued by V.N. Krasnov and S.V. Kupreichenko, the lawfully appointed defence lawyers of Platon L. Lebedev.

Platon Lebedev would like to express his appreciation of the media’s close attention to the subject of the unlawful criminal prosecution initiated against him and against Mikhail Khodorkovsky. At the same time, he has drawn our attention to press reports in which, regrettably, vexing errors have appeared. These have then been repeated in many different sources, over a considerable period of time.

On 1 July 2008, for instance, the website www.NEWSru.com announced, in an article entitled “The case of former Yukos vice president Aleksanyan has reached Strasbourg”, that Mr Lebedev supposedly “declared that he intended to admit his guilt of all charges in exchange for Mr Aleksanyan’s transfer from prison to hospital ...” This is not an accurate or true statement.

What Platon Lebedev actually said, in our presence, at the Chita Region Court on 1 February 2008 was as follows:

“I do not know how to help Aleksanyan from my prison cell but I am ready to retract my public statements in court and those of my defence if that will in some way help Mr Aleksanyan”. The suggestion referred to certain statements made at a particular court hearing on a specific issue and did not represent the views of the defence and their client concerning the ungrounded criminal prosecution taken as a whole. Mr Lebedev further requested that prosecutor Zhukov “let Aleksanyan know that he is entitled to any depositions against me, given his present situation — whatever it takes to end his torment, whatever is necessary to save his life.”

Since certain print and electronic media distorted the words of our client he felt obliged on 8 February 2008 to issue another statement in which he noted the following:

“the reports certain parts of the media are broadcasting that I, allegedly, was ready to admit to anything and recognise the accusations against me because of the problems Vasily Aleksanyan is facing, display both a lack of accuracy and a schizophrenic attitude, since I am engaged in my own investigation of the crimes committed by the authorities during the Yukos affair. In actual fact, I am investigating the crimes they have committed against justice in Russia, against the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and against innocent people. [...]”

In his original 1 February 2008 statement Mr Lebedev said:

“I suppose that it is obvious to everyone that there is no question of my admitting any of the schizophrenic accusations fabricated against me on the orders of the Kremlin. At the same time, I would like particularly to stress that Aleksanyan who is being tortured and, in effect, murdered by the authorities, has the right in that situation to give any depositions, including those that might incriminate me.”

The above statements were published at the time on the www.khodorkovsky.info website (in Russian and English). Contrary to the report that has appeared on www.NEWSru.com, therefore, Platon Lebedev has not made any declarations about his supposed intentions “to recognise his guilt in all respects in exchange for the transfer of Vasily Aleksanyan from prison to hospital.”

We hope that in future such misunderstandings will be excluded from the work of the honourable representatives of the mass media.

Respectfully
Attorneys at law, V.N. Krasnov and S.V. Kupreichenko,
Defence lawyers to Platon L. Lebedev