A Moscow district court refused on Thursday to reconsider an appeal against parole rejection from jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's defense, his lawyer said on Thursday.
Moscow's Preobrazhensky District Court had already twice returned Khodorkovsky's parole request without consideration to a pre-trial detention center in Moscow where he was held at the time.
"Now the court has refused to accept our appeal in belief that the law does not provide for a reconsideration of such court rulings," lawyer Natalya Terekhova said, adding that the defense team would now file an appeal with the Moscow City Court.
She also said she did not know whom the appeal had been forwarded to.
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Lebedev lodged a parole request on May 27, but a Moscow court returned it citing improperly filed paperwork.
Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company convicted of embezzlement and tax fraud, was sentenced to an additional six years on top of his initial eight-year sentence by a Moscow court in December 2010, later reduced by one year. He is now due for release in 2016.
The two men have denied all charges against them, saying they were politically charged.
