The Chita Region Court agrees to investigation’s virtual monopoly right to present evidence

The Chita Region Court has rejected an appeal by Platon Lebedev’s lawyers against the ruling of Judge Likhanova of the city’s Central district court. She would not accept the lawyers’ complaint that Investigator Akimov was refusing to add evidence gathered by the defence to the case files.

Today defence attorney Igor Sapozhkov declared in court that the actions of the investigator were unlawful. “This is an anarchic approach to the law,” he commented. The spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office meanwhile considered that the investigator’s actions were lawful. Presenting the prosecution viewpoint, the spokesperson informed the court that the investigator had the right to decide whether to include evidence from the defence or not. “That is the prerogative of the investigation,” commented the prosecutor’s office spokesperson. “In this case Lebedev’s constitutional rights have not been violated.”

“The defendant and his defence team are entitled by law to gather evidence and the court is obliged to uphold the norms of the law,” said Lebedev’s lawyer Vladimir Krasnov. “All the evidence we presented has a direct bearing on the case.”

“Today’s decision by the Chita Region Court contradicts the four analogous decisions that it reached previously,” Krasnov told Interfax after the hearing ended. Platon Lebedev also noted the blatant violation permitted by the court: “Judge Likhanova of the Central district court took her decision in the absence of both the defence and the prosecutor’s office.” Lebedev issued the following negative assessment of the investigation’s behaviour: “As soon as the defence offers a small piece of evidence they start having hysterics.”

(Interfax, 14.08.2008)

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Vladimir Krasnov clarifies the nature of the documents in the possession of the defence:

“The law guarantees the right of the defence to gather evidence. It is thereby enabled, in the manner established, to secure evidence of its clients’ innocence.

“A publication in the Vedomosti daily is one of the pieces of evidence used to show the ‘guilt’ of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in misappropriating shares in the subsidiaries of the Eastern Oil Company (VNK) plc. The prosecution takes statements in that article by D. Gololobov and R. Burganov, which do not relate to the episode in question, draw quite unfounded conclusions and then use them as ‘evidence’ of the guilt of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.

“Lebedev’s defence team have received clarification from Gololobov and Burganov that refutes the conclusions drawn by the investigators. All attempts by the defence to add these documents to the case file, however, meet with a fierce opposition that has no legal justification from the investigation and the courts.”