MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti) - A revision of charges by the Meshchansky court against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev concerning the research institute of fertilizers and insectofungicides will not alleviate the verdict, said Lebedev's lawyer Yelena Liptser.
The court decided to charge the two men under Article 147 of the RSFSR Criminal Code as regards the fraudulent acquisition of the institute's shares, but Liptser said this is a purely technical issue.
"This fact does not mean that the verdict will be softer," she said. "The sentence will be based on the aggregate charges on which Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will be pronounced guilty."
The lawyer added that the court had decided to reword the charge because the alleged crime was committed before the new wording of the Criminal Code was approved.
"The fraudulent action was taken during the operation of the code that stipulated a less harsh punishment for the crime," said Irina Kolesnikova, the presiding judge.
Article 147 stipulated a sentence of four to ten years of imprisonment, while under the current code the two defendants can be given five to ten years.
The court has accepted as proved the charge that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev jointly supervised the fraudulent acquisition of a state-owned 44% stake in the above institute. According to investigators, the defendants organized the creation of several shell firms for participation in the auction for the 44% stake at the nominal value of about 130 million rubles (about $25 million in the prices of the period), while the actual market cost of the stake was more than 5 billion rubles.
The lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former owner of Yukos, and Platon Lebedev, head of Group Menatep, refused to provide a legal assessment of the verdict before the end of the reading.
Yelena Liptser said the defense would tackle the issue after the verdict reading in the case of Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and Krainov.
"We will express our legal assessment of the verdict in our appeals to the Supreme Court, which we will file as soon as we receive a copy of the verdict," the lawyer said.
Verdict reading will be continued on May 20.
