PLATON LEBEDEV'S 3RD YEAR OF DETENTION

That this House notes the passing of the third anniversary since Platon Lebedev was arrested on his hospital bed in July 2003; remains concerned that Mr Lebedev was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in June 2005 on charges widely described as being politically motivated; is further concerned that Mr Lebedev suffers from hypertension and chronic hepatitis and has been refused medical treatment throughout his trial and subsequent imprisonment in the Kharp Special Regime Colony OG 93/3 in the Yamal Nenets Peninsula, a prison usually reserved for dangerous repeat offenders and which is over 1,000 miles away from his Moscow home; calls on the government of the Russian Federation to allow an immediate independent medical examination of Mr Lebedev, as recommended by the Council of Europe, and to allow him to be moved to a detention facility near his home in Moscow in compliance with Article 73 of the Russian Penal Code; and further calls on the Prime Minister to raise Mr Lebedev's plight with President Putin at the G8 Summit in St Petersburg.