Judge Falileyev is rebuked by his colleagues

The Chita Region Court has upheld the appeal by Platon Lebedev’s lawyers against the decision of the Ingodinsky district court, which earlier refused to support their complaint about the actions (inaction) of the investigators from the prosecutor’s office.

The district court must now reconsider its decision. As a correspondent of the Interfax-Siberia agency reports from the courtroom, the collegium for criminal cases of the Chita Region Court has issued a reprimand to Judge Falileyev (the same who turned down Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s application for parole).

“The appeal referred to incidents involving company American Express cards,” attorney Igor Sapozhkov told Interfax-Siberia. Platon Lebedev had earlier informed the Ingodinsky district court that these cards had never existed.

(Interfax, 28.08.2008)

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The appeal mentioned above was submitted by Platon Lebedev as far back as 19 July 2007. It was only after the superior court had issued the necessary ruling, however, that the Ingodinsky district court would agree to begin examining the complaint.

Then, on 7 November 2007, Judge Novikova of the Ingodinsky district court in Chita, ruled that the appeal should be heard in Moscow at the Basmanny district court. She thereby acknowledged that the investigation of the case was, in fact, being carried out in Moscow. The Prosecutor General's office was most dissatisfied with this decision and appealed against it. On 14 February 2008 the Chita Region Court sided with the Prosecutor General's office and over-ruled the decision to forward the appeal to Moscow.

On 5 March 2008 Judge Igor Falileyev of the Ingodinsky district court examined Lebedev’s appeal and decreed that it should not be upheld because the circumstances it described required a different form of verification. Today the Chita Region Court expressed its disagreement with Judge Falileyev.