On Tuesday statements concerning Platon Lebedev on the official website of the Prosecutor General's office were again challenged in court

On Tuesday the Tverskoi district court in Moscow failed to find false assertions that sullied the honour, dignity and business reputation of Platon Lebedev in a report issued by the Prosecutor General's office on 16 February 2007. As a consequence it did not uphold the lawsuit filed by Lebedev. Vladimir Krasnov, Platon Lebedev’s attorney, considers the arguments in the lawsuit so convincing that he expressed sympathy for the judge who after issuing today’s ruling would have to write a supporting text.

The lawsuit was prompted by two passages in a report placed on the official website of the Prosecutor General's office on 16 February 2007.

The first was an assertion that “M.B. Khodorkovsky, P.L. Lebedev and other individuals forming part of an organised group in 1994-6 misappropriated shares in Apatit plc and the output of the said enterprise (for which they have been sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment) ...”

Disputing the assertion of the Prosecutor General's office, Lebedev’s attorney Vladimir Krasnov first appealed to the Constitution. This states that anyone accused of committing a certain crime is considered innocent until his guilt is established by the verdict of a court that has acquired legal force. “Not one court verdict has found my client guilty of misappropriating either the shares of Apatit plc in 1994-6 or the output of that enterprise,” stated Krasnov. “He was not sentenced to a lengthy terms of imprisonment for such crimes. To assert the opposite is simply to ignore the details of the case.”

The second episode concerns shares in the Eastern Oil Company (VNK) plc. The report on the website of the Prosecutor General's office stated, and continues to state: “Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and other members of the organised group stole 38% of the shares of VNK plc, worth more than 3 billion roubles, that belonged to the State”. In the lawsuit Platon Lebedev showed that “such an event never occurred and could not have taken place” because the State sold its shares in VNK at public auctions where rights to their ownership passed to others after payment was received.

The defendant (Prosecutor General's office) replied with a bald assertion that everything described on the site corresponded to the charge sheet against Platon Lebedev and other procedural documents.

At every stage in today’s court hearing attorney Krasnov asked prosecutor Valery Lakhtin to show the court where in the official documents, not on the website, his client was accused of misappropriating 38% of VNK shares. The defendant said that such an accusation would become obvious only after becoming acquainted with all 147 pages of the decree charging Platon Lebedev. Certain places were indicated, nevertheless, where there was mention of VNK plc in the decree. However, in one case it was only a question of the value of the said shares: their misappropriation was not mentioned. In another case the investigators described the unlawful and unremunerated use of the shares of subsidiary organisations of VNK plc to the advantage of a group of individuals.

“The shares of VNK and shares belonging to VNK are different things,” emphasised Vladimir Krasnov. “My client has never been accused of misappropriating 38% of the shares in VNK plc.” In reply Valery Lakhtin spoke of the way in which the Prosecutor General's office operated its website: “The site does not offer a mirror image of fragments from procedural documents but a resume adapted for readers of the site who are not experts in jurisprudence.”

After withdrawing for about ten minutes for a solitary consultation Judge Sivalkin ruled that Platon Lebedev’s lawsuit be declined. In October 2007 the same judge reached a similar conclusion when Lebedev submitted a lawsuit, proving that he could not be party to an astronomical transaction worth more than 60 trillion dollars as the official website of the Prosecutor General's office alleged.

Lebedev’s defence team intend to appeal against today’s decision.