MOSCOW, December 13 - RAPSI. Former Menatep head Platon Lebedev has filed an appeal under the supervisory procedure against the court judgment sentencing him and former YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky to 14 years in prison for oil theft and money laundering, the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev press center reported on its website.

Khodorkovsky's defense filed a similar appeal in late November.

The defense says the court has only cast a glance over the appeals and arguments submitted by the convicts and their defense counsel. Meanwhile the court did not produce any sound reasons for dismissing the appeals. In this regard, the defense requests the Moscow City Court's chairman to overrule the dismissal of their supervisory appeal.

In late 2010, a Moscow district court sentenced Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to 14 years in prison for oil theft and money laundering. They were expected to be released in 2017, taking into account the time they had served for their convictions from their first trial in 2005. However, on May 24, the Moscow City Court reduced their sentences by one year. The two are now expected to be released in 2016.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev appealed the court's refusal to cancel their convictions under the supervisory procedure. However, the appeal was also dismissed.

The YUKOS case has been one of the most high-profile cases in Russia in recent years. In early 2000 the Russian authorities cracked down on YUKOS management for alleged financial crimes. At the time, YUKOS was Russia's largest oil company. YUKOS later went bankrupt and its assets were appropriated by the state-owned Rosneft.