Platon Lebedev describes the finer points of the 2003 search of his home to the Ingodinsky court in Chita.

Today the Ingodinsky district court in Chita held its third hearing this week into the complaint lodged by the former head of Group Menatep Platon Lebedev. Once again the hearing ended with an adjournment. This time it will resume on 4 March. Lebedev is attempting to secure the admission that T.V. Rusanova, an investigator with the Prosecutor General's office, concealed the falsification of documentation in the two criminal cases against him and, by so doing, acted unlawfully (or failed to act lawfully).

To begin with the complaint addressed the issue of corporate American Express cards. Reference to the cards has made its way into the second criminal case from the first, although even the record of the search contains no evidence that American Express cards were found and confiscated when Lebedev’s Moscow home was searched in 2003. (Platon Lebedev says that such cards never existed.) Investigator Rusanova was present at that search.

Today Lebedev’s defence team made public an addition to the complaint, demonstrating that their claims against investigator Rusanova were by no means restricted to the card episode. “We ask that not only the actions linked to the corporate cards be declared unlawful and unfounded,” emphasised defence attorney Sergei Kupreichenko, “but a number of other procedural actions and decisions taken by investigator Rusanova.”

In particular, this concerned Platon Lebedev’s foreign travel passports. Unlike the mythical cards they were indeed confiscated during the search. “These passports contain date stamps indicating when I crossed the Russian border and provide my irrefutable alibis,” explained Platon Lebedev, according to Interfax. “ However, my passports were not included in the first criminal case. Only after a court ruling did the prosecutor’s office include them in the new criminal case.”