The press centre has now published in full the decision issued on 16 September by the presidium of the Moscow City Court. It is the third successive judicial body to rule that the 20 March 2007 decision of the Basmanny district court is lawful and substantiated.

The Prosecutor-General’s office is continuing to battle for acceptance of RF deputy prosecutor-general Grin’s supervisory motion of 3 February 2007, making Chita the location for the preliminary investigation into the new charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. All judicial bodies that have assessed this decree have found it to be unlawful, unsubstantiated and unmotivated. Their rulings have been ignored, however, both by the Prosecutor General’s office and the Investigative Committee attached to the Prosecutor General’s office.

It will soon be six months since the first appeal by the Prosecutor General’s office against the Basmanny court ruling was turned down. Ever since then Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have been held in Chita without any legal justification. Yet Alexander Drymanov, the new head of the team of investigators, has already announced that his department will be appealing for the Basmanny court decision to be repealed at the highest level, the Presidium of the RF Supreme Court.

With the presidium’s decree the press centre also publishes the commentary by defence attorney Yury Schmidt, in which he gives a detailed and devastating verdict on the prosecutor’s supervisory motion.