Appeals by Lebedev further delayed

On Thursday the Chita Region Court should have examined two appeals by Platon Lebedev’s defence lawyers against the decisions of the Ingodinsky district court. However, the hearing did not take place. The documents were returned to the court of the first instance to be redrafted.

At the end of August Lebedev’s attorneys submitted two complaints to the Ingodinsky district court. The first concerned the unlawful refusal of the investigators to add to the case files evidence in support of their arguments. On 6 March 2007 Karimov, then head of the team of investigators, decreed that “all documents concerning general meetings of Yukos shareholders from 1999 to 2004” should be confiscated. In the case files, however, only a small part of the confiscated documents were to be found. The defence consider that the investigators adopted this selective approach because the minutes of the general meetings of shareholders “supported Lebedev, since they testify to the legality of Yukos’ activities as a whole and to that of its shareholders in particular.”

In April 2008 Platon Lebedev petitioned for all the confiscated materials to be added to the case files, especially since the investigators (in Karimov’s decree) pointed to their importance as evidence. Alyshev, present head of the team of investigators, refused to satisfy Lebedev’s petition. It was his refusal that the defence lawyers appealed against in late August. Judge E.A. Mershiyeva refused to register their complaint. Furthermore, she did not issue her refusal during a judicial hearing and neither Lebedev nor his lawyers were present. An appeal against Judge Mershiyeva’s ruling should have been heard in the Chita Region Court on Thursday.

The second complaint, also submitted to the Ingodinsky district court in late August, was based on the linguistic “feats” of the translator Zuyeva. In their complaint the lawyers wrote about the failure of the investigators to take any measures to remove the distortions of information that the translator had committed (for example, in Ms Zuyeva’s translations the dates 32, 33, 36 and 38 December could be found and the term “products” was taken to mean countries in Europe, Asia and Africa). Twice Platon Lebedev petitioned for this “incompetent translator” to be taken off the case and twice he was refused. The defence now appealed against these refusals. However, Judge Mershiyeva did not find this a subject appropriate for judicial supervision. The Chita Region Court should have also have given its view of that decision by Judge Mershiyeva on Thursday.

The infringements of the Ingodinsky district court, about which the defence team intended to speak today, were not exhausted by the rulings of Judge Mershiyeva. She had not sent Platon Lebedev either the text of her decisions on both complaints nor the appeals. The lawyers pointed this out to Judge Tikhonov, chairman of the Ingodinsky district court, and received a letter from him, stating that “since judicial hearings to examine the complaints of attorneys V.N. Krasnov and S.V. Kupreichenko were not held, there are no grounds for sending P.L. Lebedev the documents you refer to, or establishing the deadline for appeal”. (The attorneys note that the decision to refuse to register a complaint without holding a judicial hearing “is already in itself a flagrant violation of the law”.)

The right of Platon Lebedev to judicial defence has been repeatedly infringed by the Ingodinsky district court: first Judge Mershiyeva refused to accept the two complaints, then she and the chairman of the court Tikhonov did all they could to deprive Lebedev “of the opportunity to take part in the appeals process”.

The attorneys drew up a petition concerning the infringement of Platon Lebedev’s rights by the Ingodinsky district court in which they requested the Chita Region Court to issue reprimands to Judges Mershiyeva and Tikhonov. (On 13 October the Chita Region Court already issued a reprimand to Judge Tikhonov for infringing Platon Lebedev’s rights.)

After becoming acquainted with the petition, the Chita Region Court collegium of judges decided that the documents presented for the appeal should be sent back to the Ingodinsky district court. When the appeal hearings will now take place is not known. The attorneys say that redrafting of the documents could go on for months.