Russia & CIS General Newswire, 24 April 2008

The Russian Supreme Court has upheld an earlier ruling extending until May 2 the custody term of former Menatep chief Platon Lebedev at the pre-trial detention facility in Chita.

The court has thus rejected the appeal of the defense, which challenged the ruling of the Chita Regional Court, Lebedev's lawyer Vladimir Krasnov told Interfax.

Lebedev, who participated in the proceedings through a video link, said that "there are no reasons to extend the custody term, and that if he had been released from Chita, he would have been moved to Kharp [where he was serving his sentence]," the lawyer said.

Therefore, claims by the higher court and investigators that he represented a flight risk are unfounded, the lawyers said.

The Supreme Court found that the decision to extend Lebedev's custody term until May 2 was legal. On Friday, April 25, the Chita Regional Court will rule on a motion to extend the custody term until August 2.

Earlier, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky was being held in custody lawfully. Soon after, the Chita Regional Court extended the custody term until August 2.

RIA Novosti, 23 April 2008

The Chita Oblast Court is to decide on 25 April 2008 on the extension of the custody for Platon Levedev in Chita pre-trial detention camp until 2 August 2008, as demanded by the General Prosecutor’s Investigation Committee, according to Igor Saposhkov. RIA Novosti adds that the defence of Lebedev was unsuccessful in its claim to remove Valery Lakhtin, representative of the General Prosecutors, for being partial, and the judge Ludmila Kalshinikova.

Yezhednevny zhurnal, 23 April 2008

Leonid Radzikhovsky, publicist, said: “Out of the list [of the hundred richest Russian businessmen according to Forbes] in 2004 up to the present, about half are left. Individual people leave the list as well as entire teams. First and foremost, of course, is Yukos – an entire eleven people have gone from the 2004 list. They have experienced, as we know, different fates. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are in prison camps, Nevzlin and Brudno in Israel, Dubov in England, Shakhnovsky in Switzerland, and, say, Sergei Muravlenko is the RF Communist Party deputy in the Gosduma, and judging by his official declaration of property, he might not have a billion, but he’s not far off.”

Dow Jones, 22 April 2008

Rosneft may earn more than $1 billion on the sale of Tomskneft, which it purchased last year from Yukos. Rosneft acquired Tomskneft and several other assets in last May for $6.8 billion during the breakup of Yukos. In December, Rosneft resold a 50% stake in Tomskneft and some other assets to Gazprom Neft, the oil-arm Gazprom for $3.6 billion. In its 2007 financial report, Rosneft stated that it paid taxes worth $285 million for the sale of Tomskneft, setting the value of the Tomskneft deal at $1.2 billion.