"The court has no chance to regard a complete body of evidence and thus substantiate its judgement whether there are actual reasons to cancel proceedings on Apatite stock misappropriation. It was too early now for the defence to make its appeal," said Justice Irina Kolesnikova, court president.
The limitation period has long expired on the suspected Apatite swindle, the defence had argued.
Alexandra Nagornaya, spokeswoman for the federal Tax Ministry, called the court to turn down the appeal as the prosecution's evidence is being regarded and the defence's are yet to come up. The prosecution made the same demand as case cancellation would clash with the criminal procedural law. "It is impossible to cancel criminal proceedings before the litigants offer all evidence," pointed out Dmitri Shokhin, counsel for the prosecution.
The lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former proprietor of the Yukos petroleum mammoth, appealed to the Moscow city court to cancel a recent district court decision to prolong the defendant's custody, Karina Moskalenko, one of the counsels for defence, said to Novosti today. "We demand that the court cancel the decision and qualify it as void as it violates European convention-guaranteed freedom rights," she stressed.
The Meschansky court prolonged Khodorkovsky's detention for another three months, up to February 14, in a session of November 1.
Khodorkovsky has spent longer than a year in custody for today. He is accused of tax evasion and swindles-both involving exorbitant sums-and other crimes, on a total seven Criminal Code clauses.
