Moscow City Court is to review on Friday its earlier ruling to place under arrest ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, as the Supreme Court said their detention may violate a presidential order, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.
The Moscow court approved last year a district’s court decision to keep the businessmen in a pretrial detention prison for the duration of their new trial on fraud and tax eviction charges.
The businessmen were already serving prison sentences at the time, but their lawyers sought to have them sent back to a regular prison where the regime is less strict, the report said.
The defense has cited President Dmitry Medvedev’s April order to not place into detention suspects in economic crimes as the reason for the request, which was rejected by Moscow courts.
(MT)
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