Platon Lebedev and his lawyers now take the battle to appeal.

At its fifth hearing in the last ten days, the Ingodinsky district court in Chita turned down Platon Lebedev’s complaint against the unlawful actions of T.V. Rusanova, an investigator with the Prosecutor’s General’s office. He accuses her of concealing instances when the materials of both criminal cases against him were falsified.

Interfax reports that the court recognised the actions of the investigator as lawful. The former head of Group Menatep and his lawyers continue to assert that fabricated information is present in the documentation of the new criminal case. In particular, Lebedev said that the corporate American Express cards which played a part in both the first and second criminal cases had never existed (and could not have been confiscated, therefore, as was alleged). The investigators could not fail to be aware of this, he said. Meanwhile, Lebedev’s foreign travel documents, his passports, offered a complete and full confirmation of his alibi — as the investigators could not fail to be aware. Yet after his home was searched the passports mysteriously disappeared and were inaccessible during the entire length of the first case and subsequent trial. Only recently had they made their appearance in the documentation of the second (new) criminal case, following innumerable demands from Platon Lebedev and a court ruling.

Platon Lebedev first made his formal complaint against investigator Rusanova, we may recall, on 19 July 2007. However, it was not until a higher court had issued the necessary ruling that the Ingodinsky district court agreed to examine Lebedev’s complaint. Then, on 7 November 2007, Judge S.V. Novikova ruled that the complaint should be sent to the Basmanny district court in Moscow. Her decision was a recognition that the investigation, especially into the second criminal case was being conducted, contrary to official claims, in Moscow not in Chita. Such a decision was not at all to the liking of the Prosecutor General’s office, which made representations for Novikova’s decision to be over-ruled. On 14 February 2008 the Chita Region Court over-turned the decision to forward the complaint for consideration in Moscow. Today the new panel of judges at the Ingodinsky district court ruled that Platon Lebedev’s complaint should not be upheld.

Lebedev’s defence team have already announced that they are preparing to appeal against today’s judicial decision.