MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's imprisoned business partner, Platon Lebedev, appealed to a Moscow court Thursday to acknowledge the transfer of their client to a penal colony in Western Siberia illegal.
"Lebedev was illegally transferred to the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district," lawyer Yelena Liptser said. "Convicts should serve their terms in the region where they lived or were convicted or in a neighboring region."
Liptser also said the penitentiary service had not taken into account Lebedev's liver disease.
On November 7, Lebedev's lawyers forwarded the appeal to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and the Federal Penitentiary Service, but have yet to receive a reply.
On Sunday, the lawyers returned from the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district. Last week they met with their client daily.
Lawyer Konstantin Rivkin said they had talked to Lebedev through a glass divide in a room where inmates meet with their relatives since there is no special setup for meetings with lawyers. He said the lawyers intended to visit Lebedev again in late November.
Lawyers for Lebedev's business partner, former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, met with their client some weeks ago in a penal colony in East Siberia's Chita region. The lawyers discussed a supervisory appeal to the Moscow City Court's Presidium and an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg with Khodorkovsky.
