The Moscow City Court has ruled that investigative procedures in Chita in the case of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Menatep Group head Platon Lebedev are legal.

Thereby, the court turned down the appeal of the defense that sought to have the recent ruling of the Moscow Basmanny District Court overturned.

The Basmanny Court said on January 30 that the Chita investigative procedures did not breach the constitutional rights of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. The lawyers argued that the related order of a deputy prosecutor general was groundless.

The Basmanny Court upheld a similar complaint on March 20, 2007, while the judgment of January 30, 2008, did not support the Chita investigative procedures with any arguments, Lebedev's lawyer Yelena Liptser said.

"The judge, just as Deputy Prosecutor General Grin, did not explain their decisions," she said.

Khodorkovsky's lawyer Yuri Schmidt said it was unclear from the Basmanny Court's ruling why the investigative procedures in Chita "were comprehensive and objective."

"Do they mean that the four years of investigative procedures conducted in Moscow were not objective? We think it was impossible to conduct unbiased procedures in Chita," the lawyer said.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were transferred to Chita from their penitentiaries for the investigation of their new criminal case.

(Russia & CIS General Newswire, April 7, 2008)