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Duma Says Judges Are Disobeying Medvedev

State Duma deputies have complained to the Supreme Court that judges are failing to obey a Kremlin-backed law that bans the arrest of suspects in economic crimes.

The complaint, which was approved Friday, also asks the court for information about how many businesspeople have been arrested for economic crimes and how many of them have asked to be freed and have been placed under house arrest after the law was enacted a month ago.

The Supreme Court is obliged to reply to the request within a month.

The law, sponsored by President Dmitry Medvedev, prohibits the detention of suspects and defendants in many cases involving economic crimes. It was drafted in response to the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, 37, who died in pretrial detention after purportedly not receiving sufficient medical help. A second suspect, businesswoman Vera Trifonova, 53, has since died in custody after also apparently not receiving medical care.

One way a court can avoid the need to abide by the law is to refuse to acknowledge that a suspect was engaged in entrepreneurial activity, Vedomosti reported Wednesday. For example, Moscow's Tverskoi District Court extended the detention of Alexander Volkov, director of Eurasia Logistics, who was accused of fraud and property laundering, saying his charges were criminal, not economic, in late April, it said.

Last week, former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky held a two-day hunger strike to protest the extension of his custody, which he said violated the April law, although prolonged custody has little practical effect on Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence after being convicted in 2005 of fraud and tax evasion.

The Moscow City Court on Friday upheld the decision of the Khamovnichesky District Court to leave Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev in custody until Aug. 17.

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