"I do not think it worthwhile to work on supporting the illusion that the goings-on are legal. With my failing health, I want to withdraw from this farce," she quoted her client, transnational financial group Menatep CEO.
His lawyers made a sequence of appeals to a cassation instance while the investigation and subsequent court hearings were on. The Moscow City Court turned down all their appeals, Lebedev said.
He is pinning his hopes on Russia's Supreme and Constitutional courts, and the European Court of Human Rights. "I shall get prepared to a dialogue with those instances," Lebedev said in a statement.
As he alleges, a sentence copy that reached him differed from the verdict announced by Moscow's Meshchansky district court, where his case was heard. That was one of the reasons why he withdrew from the cassation procedure.
Today, Lebedev passed through pre-trial detention prison authorities a statement on his refusal to take part in appeal consideration by the cassation board, thus giving up the idea of having his sentence quashed.
Unlike him, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former proprietor of the Yukos petroleum major, made a cassation appeal on all points of his sentence, yesterday.
"My client has appealed against his sentence, and his appeal presents his opinion of the verdict," Heinrich Padva, one of his lawyers, said.
Khodorkovsky expressed his desire to attend hearings on his appeal.
The legal procedure allows cassation appeal hearings held in the convict/defendant's absence. The applicant is to notify the court in case he desires to attend the hearings or watch them on a television broadcast.
Khodorkovsky insists on the district court verdict abrogated.
As he sees it, the sentence rests on totally unsubstantiated allegations of instructions he and Lebedev were making to certain persons through others. No evidence on that score is to be found either in the file or in witness statements.
Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's lawyers appealed against the sentence within ten days since its courtroom reading finished.
The defense insists on Khodorkovsky's prosecution stopped, Padva said.
Lebedev's lawyers are appealing to the Moscow City Court to make a similar verdict in their client's respect.
The Meshchansky district court of Moscow sentenced Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to nine years general-security imprisonment each. The verdict of "guilty" concerned six clauses of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation.
It took the court two weeks to read the sentence-May 16 into 31.
