The Chita Regional Court is in no hurry to rule on a point of law

The Chita Regional Court today once more postponed its hearing of an appeal by Platon Lebedev’s defence team on a point of law. The lawyers were intending to appeal against the refusal by a judge of the Central District Court to hear their appeal against the actions of Investigator A.V. Akimov.

The defence considers that the Investigation is engaged in an unconstitutional attempt to monopolise the right to collect evidence, and is unlawfully refusing to allow the defence attorneys to have evidence they have collected added to the case materials.

If on 28 July there was no hearing because Platon Lebedev had not been brought to the court, the excuse for today’s procrastination was procedural deadlines.

‘The case is adjourned to 14 August on account of irregularities in the notification of Attorney Krasnov,” a court representative reported to the Interfax-Sibir news agency.

Platon Lebedev’s attorney Vladimir Krasnov considers that it was technically impossible for the court to observe the prescribed procedures. “The court is required to notify the parties no less than fourteen days before an appeal on a point of law is heard,” the attorney explains. “No such notification had been received by 28 July. The hearings were then moved to Wednesday, which meant that the parties simply could not be duly notified, because there are not fourteen days between Monday and Wednesday. That is, by moving the hearings to this date, the court predetermined that it would not be considering the matter today either.”

Vladimir Krasnov explains something that goes right to the heart of the matter: “The right of the defence to collect evidence is guaranteed by law. This enables it to obtain in due manner evidence of the innocence of its clients.

One of the pieces of evidence claimed to show that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were guilty of misappropriating shares in subsidiary enterprises of OAO VNK is an item in the newspaper Vedomosti, which has been attached to the case materials, from which, referring to statements by D. Gololobov and R. Burganov which have no relevance to the present matter, the Investigation comes to totally unfounded conclusions and uses them as supposed ‘evidence’ of the guilt of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.

Lebedev’s defence team received comments by D. Gololobov and R. Burganov refuting the Investigation’s conclusions, but all the defence team’s attempts to have these documents attached to the case materials have encountered fierce opposition, without any legal basis, from the Investigation and the courts. It is no surprise that consideration of Lebedev’s defence team’s appeal on a point of law against the refusal to attach Gololobov and Burganov’s explanations to the case materials has been adjourned yet again.”