Chita Region Court announces decision

The Chita Region Court has prolonged until 20 February 2009 Platon Lebedev’s detention in custody, an Interfax-Siberia correspondent reports from the courtroom.

The judge thereby took the side of the team of investigators, which claimed in its petition that the extension was justified due to the large volume of the criminal case and the time needed to examine possible defence petitions and to prepare the final charges.

The court also agreed with the investigators that it was permissible, in exceptional cases, to extend custody in the pre-trial detention centre, for more than 12 months. In February 2009 Platon Lebedev will have already spent 2 years in the detention centre, according to the investigators, but his lawyers say he will have been there for 2 years and almost 2 months.

Earlier the court also extended the custody of Mikhail Khodorkovsky until 2 February.

The Khodorkovsky-Lebedev criminal case amounts to 168 volumes of documentation. According to the prosecutor’s office, Lebedev has read 151 volumes in their entirety and partially read a further 6.

At the hearing on Friday the defence of the former head of Group Menatep asked that the investigation petition be rejected. “The investigations has no grounds for prolonging custody, let alone refuting the arguments of the defence,” Lebedev’s lawyers told the court.

They consider that the investigation’s arguments about material, judicial and procedural grounds for keeping Lebedev in custody are without foundation.

(Interfax, 20.10.2008)