Translated material
The decision to reduce Platon Lebedev's sentence has been canceled again
The Arkhangelsk Regional Court overturned the decision to reduce the sentence of Platon Lebedev, according to which he could be released in the summer of 2013. The case was sent for a new trial.
The Arkhangelsk Regional Court overturned the decision of the Velsky District Court to reduce the sentence of the former head of the MFO "MENATEP" Platon Lebedev, according to which he should have been released in July 2013, and sent the case for a new trial in a different court.
Lebedev himself did not take part in the process.
“I believe that this outrageous lack of justice against Lebedev continues. And how long it will last is unknown. We are not going to call it a day. We will defend Lebedev’s rights,” lawyer Vladimir Krasnov told reporters at the end of the hearing.
On November 1, the Velsk City Court of the Arkhangelsk Region reduced the sentence of the former head of the MFO "MENATEP" Platon Lebedev to 10 years (thus Lebedev should have been released in the summer of 2013). A few days later, the prosecutor's office of the Arkhangelsk region announced that it would appeal the court's decision due to the "excessive reduction of punishment."
This is not the first time that Lebedev’s sentence was commuted and then the decision was reversed. In the summer, the Velsk court reduced the sentence in such a way that the ex-leader of MENATEP could be released in March next year. However, the prosecutor’s office appealed this decision, and soon the Arkhangelsk Regional Court also canceled the court’s decision and sent the case for a new trial, to another judge.
Platon Lebedev, like the former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, received a total of 13 years in prison in two criminal cases. According to the original sentence, both should be released in 2016. The period is calculated from 2003 - from the date of arrest in the first Yukos case.