‘The defendant of the Yukos case can die in the following months. How the lawyer and the press were ‘burying’ Platon Lebedev. The website Prigovor.ru reminds us of what happened on August 9, 2004.
On this day 19 years ago, on August 9, 2004, on the pages of the newspaper 'The Telegraph', western lawyers almost buried Platon Lebedev. The title of it resembled a despairing wail: The defendant of the Yukos court case ‘can die in the nearest months.’
The role of the herald was played by one of the American lawyers of Yukos, by Robert Amsterdam. He accused everybody – Kremlin, Court, pre-trial detention center 'Matrosskaya Tishina', where Lebedev was kept – and of all sins making a hysterical, but dubious show. It looked dubious because the ‘acute deterioration of the condition of Platon Lebedev’ began already in February 2004, literally of the next day after a charge was brought against him in connection with tax evasion of a physical person in the tune of more than 7 million rubles.
The press, without trying to get to the bottom, unanimously supported the position of the lawyers. The most glaring was, naturally, Amsterdam.
'In prison, the physical conditions of Mikhail Khodorkovsky have seriously deteriorated. He thinned down, the condition of his skin has worsened, says Robert Amsterdam. All these features cannot but raise the concern of the foreign lawyer. However, the conditions of other prisoners are not better – of the top manager of Yukos Platon Lebedev and Alexey Pichugin, head of the security service of the company’ – all this ‘lawyers news’ was reported by the radio station ‘Ekho Moskvy’, it was made ardently but without even trying to check facts.
Instead of details of the criminal cases, it was proposed to the audience of the liberal media ‘the story of the sharply aggravated’ deceases of the persons involved in these criminal cases. To a large extent all these ‘medical aspects’ in the affairs of the managers of the Oil Company Yukos were contrived for foreigners in all possible organizations so that they, without entering into the details, could put their signatures on yet another anti-Russian petition or resolution, and with a pure hears could feel themselves as real fighters for human rights.
Then, the decease, which ‘sharply aggravated’ in December, continued its aggressive offensive, but not so much on the organisms of the prisoners, but in the press and ardent speeches of foreign lawyers.
“The Russian billionaire, who is now on the prisoner’s dock with the former general manager of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, can not receive the necessary medical treatment in connection with a liver decease, which can be fatal,' reported the newspaper 'The Telegraph' as early as in August.
The physician who ‘looked after his conditions’ from the banks of Thames, studies the history of the decease of this billionaire and said that Lebedev didn’t receive adequate treatment. According to him, the prisoner ‘perhaps, suffers from cirrhosis or of liver cancer which were not diagnosed by the physicians of the prison ‘Matrosskaya Tishina’. ‘His condition is worsening,’ said physician O'Grady, ‘Perhaps, he will love only a couple of months,’ insisted this Aesculapian acting on the assignment of the advocates.
In fact, Platon Lebedev suffered from various diseases, but all these monstrous forecasts with which the advocated filled the information space, have been refuted by that time. During the court sessions he looked rather healthy and he, who previously ‘started to lose sight,’ tried to solve crossword puzzles.
And in January 2014, the convicted Platon Leonidovich Lebedev, born in 1956, after serving his sentence, was released. He got used to the outside, and, probably to spite Robert Amsterdam with his "doctors", in February 2015 he became one of the main characters of a noisy banquet – with wine, contests, and dancing.
See also: ‘The Special Valentine Day for those in love with Khodorkovsky’. On February 14 in the hotel ‘Sheraton-Sheremetyevo a secret party took place for nearly 300 former employees of ‘Menatep-Yukos’ who were gathered on the initiative of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This oligarch began to hire staffers. This ‘wine party’ in Sheraton was chaired by the former assistant of Khodorkovsky – by Platon Lebedev.’
This festive banquet, by the way, was called on the initiative of the man ‘suffering from the deterioration of the condition of his skin’, i.e. Mikhail Khodorkovsky. But the press, which was busy 'burying Platon’ in 2004, retrospective discrepancies poured on the audience, for some reason, turned out completely uninteresting, points out the website Progivir.ru.
(See previous story: 'Criminal chain of affiliated persons’. The money stolen and legalized through ‘Yukos Capital S.a.r.l.’ was given to the ‘affiliates’ of Yukos at interest. The website Prigovor.ru reminds us of what happened on August 8, 2006).
