Plato Leonidowitsch Lebedew

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Plato Lebedev

Platon Lebedev , also Platon Leonidovich Lebedev ( Russian Платон Леонидович Лебедев , scientific transliteration. Platon Lebedev Leonidovič *  29. November 1956 in Moscow ) is a Russian businessman and former vice-chairman of the insolvent today oil company Yukos . Lebedev is married and has three children.

Life

After graduating from the Moscow Economics Institute , he worked in the Zarubezhgeologija Foreign Trade Department of the Soviet Ministry of Geology. In 1990 he became head of Rosprom , a subsidiary of Menatep Invest's share management. This was founded as one of the first private banks in Russia in 1988 by Mikhail Khodorkovsky to finance the Komsomol company NTTM (Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth Foundation for Youth Initiatives) and, thanks to its political connections, it continued to run it successfully. In 1995, under Lebedev's leadership, Rosprom, as the house bank of the ailing oil company Yukos, secured the majority of shares in the company well below the market value, with objections from inferior bidders not being taken into account. When Khodorkovsky gave up the chairmanship of the Bank Menatep in April 1996 and took over the management of Yukos, he made his friend Lebedev his deputy here too.

arrest

Lebedev was arrested in hospital on July 2, 2003, on the pretext of illegally acquiring 20% of the shares in the Apatit mine near Kirovsk in 1994 . According to his defense attorney Jelena Lipzer (daughter of the well-known Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomarjow ), this constituted a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights . The arrest was finally declared illegal by the Russian Supreme Court in 2009 , but without consequences with regard to further detention.

First and second process

On May 16, 2005, he and his business partner Khodorkovsky were sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for tax evasion and planned fraud , and then to eight years in an appeal process. From autumn 2005 Lebedev had to produce barbed wire in a penal colony on the other side of the Arctic Circle, in Charp in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug , until he was transferred back to Moscow in February 2009. There he was accused again as the “right-hand man” of Khodorkovsky in a second trial and on December 27, 2010 he was found guilty of embezzlement of 218 million tons of oil and money laundering between 1999 and 2003. Lebedev and Khodorkovsky were sentenced on December 30, 2010 to a further six years in prison. Lebedev was expected to remain in custody until 2017. The defense had appealed the verdict.

The trial of Lebedev and Khodorkovsky and the verdict aroused loud international criticism.

At the beginning of February 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced expert legal examinations for various cases that had received a lot of public attention. This includes the controversial second judgment against Lebedev and Khodorkovsky. A body set up by the government for the promotion of human rights and civil society will prepare an opinion on the criticized procedure after the judgment comes into force.

An interview on February 14, 2011 caused a sensation. Natalja Wassiljewa, an assistant to judge Viktor Danilkin who served as the court spokeswoman during the trial, alleged that Danilkin was forced to pass the sentence by the Russian authorities. According to Vasilyeva, the verdict prepared by Danilkin at the city court did not meet expectations. That is why the Moscow Central Court presented him with a different judgment, which he had to read out. Wassiljewa describes in detail in the interview what the political influence should have looked like. Judge Danilkin called the statements slander . The Moscow City Court rejected the allegations that the verdict did not come from Danilkin. Vasilyeva's comments are nothing more than a provocation.

A statement by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had already caused a stir in the run-up to the verdict . On December 16, 2010, before the verdict was pronounced, Putin said in Question Time on a television program that it can be assumed that "Mr. Khodorkovsky's crimes have been proven in the court". "Every thief has to go to prison," said Putin, pointing out that the US fraudster Bernard Madoff had been sentenced to 150 years in prison for similar crimes. The Russian judiciary, which demands 14 years against Khodorkovsky, is “much more liberal”. Khodorkovsky's lawyer Yuri Schmidt criticized Putin's “direct interference” in the process, which exerted pressure on the judge. "This is forbidden under Article 17 of the European Convention on Human Rights ," said Schmidt and announced that he would bring this up in a lawsuit before the European Court of Human Rights, should Khodorkovsky be convicted. Russian President Medvedev indirectly criticized Putin for his remarks on television: "Neither the president nor any other official has the right to express his position in this case or in any other proceedings before the verdict."

Appeal hearing

On May 24, 2011, a Moscow appeals court upheld the lower court's judgment, but reduced the total sentence by one year. Lebedev and Khodorkovsky must therefore remain in custody until 2016. As a justification for the reduction of the sentence, the court assumed a much smaller amount of oil, which had allegedly been withheld.

Reduction of the prison sentence

Due to a new law, a Moscow district court, at the request of the prosecutor, reduced the terms of both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev by two years. After a pardon suggested to him, Khodorkovsky was pardoned on December 19, 2013 and released the following day. Platon Lebedev was released on January 24, 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c short biography
  2. ↑ Khodorkovsky
  3. ↑ a b c Process without evidence  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.morgenweb.de  
  4. ^ Supreme Court: Arrest of Khodorkovsky partner illegally ( Memento from December 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), PR Online , December 23, 2009.
  5. ↑ Another six years imprisonment for Khodorkovsky ( memento from January 21, 2011 on WebCite ) at tagesschau.de, December 30, 2010
  6. ↑ Khodorkovsky sentenced to a further six years in prison in: Spiegel Online from December 30, 2010
  7. ↑ Yukos Trial: Defense of Khodorkovsky goes against judgment , RIA Novosti, December 31, 2010
  8. ↑ "That was not a fair trial" ( Memento from January 21, 2011 on WebCite ), tagesschau.de, December 30, 2010.
  9. ↑ Medvedev's mandate: the Yukos case will be scrutinized after the judgment has come into force in: RIA Novosti of February 2, 2011
  10. ↑ The Khodorkovsky case is reviewed in: 20 minutes from February 1, 2011
  11. ↑ Yukos case: judge was employed when the judgment was drawn up in: RIA Novosti of February 14, 2011
  12. ↑ Judge is said to have been forced to judge in: Spiegel Online from February 14, 2011
  13. ^ Telephone justice in the Khodorkovsky case in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from February 15, 2011
  14. ↑ Putin pronounces Khodorkovsky guilty on TV show in: Spiegel Online from December 16, 2010
  15. ↑ Medvedev distances himself from Putin in: Spiegel Online from December 24, 2010
  16. ↑ imprisonment for Kremlin critic Khodorkovsky "cosmetically" reduced in: Swiss television of 24 May 2011
  17. ↑ Tagesschau.de from December 20, 2012 ( Memento from December 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ Khodorkovsky free - Confusion about pardon SZ Online, December 20, 2013
  19. ↑ Agencies: Platon Lebedew released from prison at www.tagesspiegel.de, January 24, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Lebedev, Plato Leonidowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lebedev, Plato Leonidowitsch; Lebedev, Plato Leonidovič; Лебедев, Платон Леонидович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian entrepreneur; former vice chairman of the Yukos oil company
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow