The Moscow City Court for the second time dismissed a petition from Russia’s human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, against the June 16, 2005 ruling of Moscow’s Meschansky Court, in the first case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. The Moscow City Court’s decision has been published on the court’s website. Lukin had already petitioned twice that the decision handed down in favour of the Federal Tax Service’s civil suit against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev had no legal basis.

Lebedev’s lawyer Vladimir Krasnov commented: “This is the ombudsman’s second appeal, because the previous one was denied by the Moscow City Court’s judge Bondarenko, who ‘justified’ her decision ignoring the law.”

A copy of the Moscow City Court decision and Krasnov’s comment in full is available on the Russian Khodorkovsky Press Centre website.