You're reading: Platon Lebedev may leave prison in July 2013

Velsk (Arkhangelsk region) - The Velsk City Court on Thursday reduced the prison sentence handed down to former Menatep head Platon Lebedev to ten years, an Interfax correspondent reports.

As a result, Lebedev may leave prison in July 2013.

Presiding judge Nikolai Raspopov agreed to re-qualify a number of the
criminal counts with which Lebedev had been charged in the first and
second trial, but refused to cut the overall sentence to the period
Lebedev had actually already served.

The amended version of the Criminal Code does not provide for more
lenient punishment for some of the offenses Lebedev was convicted of,
the judge explained.

Lebedev’s attorneys have said they will not appeal.

“We will definitely not file a cassation appeal,” lawyer Alexei Miroshnichenko told Interfax.

Nor will the defense petition speed up the implementation of the ruling, he said.

Prosecutor Sergei Semyonov was uncertain as to whether the prosecution would appeal.

“We shall see how events will develop in complex,” Miroshnichenko said.

In July 2011, judge Nikolai Raspopov rejected Lebedev’s parole plea.

On Aug. 8, the Velsk court examined Lebedev’s request to shorten
his sentence to the term he had already served. The court slashed his
combined overall sentence under two convictions from 13 years to 9 years
and 8 months, almost two years shorter than 11 years and 3 months
demanded by the prosecution.

On Sept. 21, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court overturned the ruling and ordered a review.

Lebedev is serving his term in the Velsk colony in the Arkhangelsk region.

In December 2010, he and former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky were
sentenced to 14 years in prison each for stealing oil and laundering
money in the so-called “second Yukos trial.” Six months later, the
Moscow City Court reduced the sentenced from 14 to 13 years.

The actual sentence is calculated from 2003 when Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were arrested in the “first Yukos case.”