Lebedev Blasts the Prosecution.

(From The Moscow Times)

Platon Lebedev, one of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's closest business partners, gave testimony for the first time in his eight-month trial Monday, avowing his innocence and slamming the prosecution for sloppy work.

Lebedev, the former president of Bank Menatep, has been in custody since July 2003. He has since been charged with embezzling state property, tax evasion and large-scale fraud. He is standing trial in Meshchansky district court together with Yukos founder Khodorkovsky, who testified on Friday.

"The claims and deductions of the prosecution are contrary to the facts. They are not based on the Constitution, the laws of the land, on the evidence or facts and in many cases are simply artificial," Lebedev said, speaking from the defendants' cage he shares with Khodorkovsky.

The case against the two men centers around their role in the 1994 privatization of the Apatit fertilizer plant. The prosecution claims they defrauded the state by setting up four front companies in the auction for 20 percent of Apatit and later failed to invest the funds they promised.

Lebedev said the charges against him were "slanderous" and based on "deliberate lies" and "absurd contradictions."

Strange phrasing and the lack of any logic made the case incomprehensible to him, he said.