Lebedev: “They transferred me to Chita because of the Open Russia case. Now that case has vanished.”

At the Ingodinsky district court in Chita on Wednesday the judge studied the four volumes of submitted documentation and heard what Lebedev’s lawyers had to say. A ruling will be announced on 31 July.

The complaint concerns what Lebedev’s lawyers say is the falsification of the legal and material foundations of the criminal case linked to the Open Russia Foundation. “The prosecutor’s office has not presented a single document confirming the transfer of funds from a Cyprus bank to one of the banks in Switzerland,” said defence attorney Igor Sapozhkov.

The defence noted that for two years Platon Lebedev had not been acquainted with the documentation of the new criminal case. “I was transferred to Chita [from the Kharp penal colony] in December 2006 in connection with the Open Russia case and interrogated here. Then the case vanished. This is sheer nonsense,” said Lebedev. The defence lawyers also pointed to extension to the deadlines for investigation in February 2005 of which neither Lebedev nor his attorneys were made aware.

The prosecution explained that the episode involving Open Russia had been removed from the first criminal case. The defence demanded that the decree instigating the criminal case be recognised as unlawful and without foundation and that Platon Lebedev’s right to rehabilitation be enforced.

(Interfax, 23.07.2008)