Yukos businessman Platon Lebedev waiting as Supreme Court judges file out of the courtroom on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the 2003 arrest of Yukos partner Platon Lebedev was illegal, marking the biggest victory yet for former Yukos owners in their long-running legal fight with the government.
The Supreme Court decision, which follows a similar ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 2007, does not mean that Lebedev will be freed or that investigators will revisit his 2005 conviction on tax and fraud changes, prosecutors and his lawyers said.
But it does offer hope to Lebedev and former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky that Russian courts might accept future rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, including a $100 billion lawsuit against the Russian government that the court will start considering on Jan. 14.
Lebedev was jubilant about the Supreme Court’s ruling, which said his rights had been violated when a lower Russian court ordered his arrest in 2003
