The two men's attorneys approached the Moscow City Court Monday with a request not to study charges against their clients, saying the setting of a court session regarding the issue on Sept. 14 was done in violation of the legal process.
Lebedev said in a statement on the Web site that he did not want to waste his or his lawyers' time on such a "formality" and would rather focus on preparing for hearings with Russia's Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the European Court of Human Rights.
"An independent court would find that those materials provide enough grounds for issuing the only possible decision to revoke the Meshchanksy Court's sentence and acquit Mikhail Khodorkovsky and me," Lebedev said.
Lebedev said he would also decline the services of any lawyer the court might assign to him.
Nevertheless, the court will have to examine the appeal against the verdict, according to one of the lawyers who represented the defendants throughout the trial.
He said the lawyers would not attend the court session on September 14.
Lebedev's lawyers filed an appeal on June 9 against all charges endorsed by the Meshchansky Court.
The Meshchansky Court found Khodorkovsky and Lebedev guilty of fraud, failure to comply with a court ruling, and private income and corporate tax evasion.
