As announced earlier today, the Prosecutor has appealed against Lebedev’s sentence reduction calling it “excessive”. Last week, the day the reduction was announced, Natalia Gevorkyan, the co-author of Khodorkovsky’s latest book “Prison and Freedom” commented on the Velsk Court decision during an interview on Russia’s TV Rain:

N. Gevorkyan: I dream that in the next 10 days, no one will come up with any appeal.

Host: Lawyers have already announced that they will not appeal.

N. Gevorkyan: On Friday, they are meeting Platon Lebedev. Platon is a maximalist, so I would not guarantee that they will not appeal.

Platon Lebedev responded to Gevorkyan’s comment:

“Dear Natashka! I am certainly for your dream coming true, i.e. neither I nor my defense team are not going to appeal the judge Raspopov’s decision of 01.11.2012. This does not mean that we like it, but our desire to quickly, together with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, pass the Presidium of the Moscow City Court is forcing the defense team and myself to compromise. So, I am not such a “maximalist”))): Natashka, my dear! I hope this message, through my lawyers, will reach you and all who empathize. Good luck. Platon.

PS. Thank you for the book about Mishka))):”
November 2, 2012

The shared Lebedev – Gevorkyan dream has, unfortunately, not come true and the so-called “excessive punishment reduction” did not suit the prosecution of the Arkhangelsk region.