Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s Human Rights Ombudsman, has today filed an appeal in court challenging rulings made against political prisoners Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev which required them to pay restitution for the same losses twice.

In the appeal, Lukin said that the two men were ordered to pay the money twice under two similar court rulings in 2005 and 2010.

One Moscow court ordered payment of back taxes and penalties totaling about 17 billion rubles ($550 million), while later a different court ordered payment of damages totaling 98 billion rubles ($3.18 billion), which included the earlier sum.

“Therefore losses were recovered twice as part of both the criminal proceedings and the commercial litigation (both of which regarded the same matter and the same grounds). In both rulings the court found that the company had used an illegal tax evasion scheme,” the press release issued by Lukin reads.

Double recovery – even if ordered under separate criminal and civil claims – is illegal under Russian law. As a result, the human rights commissioner has lodged a supervisory appeal to change the section of the sentence concerning the civil lawsuit against the convicts and to have it dismissed.

Source: RAPSI