MOSCOW, August 10 (RIA Novosti) - Platon Lebedev (former Menatep CEO and close associate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky) has been moved to a shared cell, Lebedev's defense lawyer Vladimir Krasnov said Wednesday.

"Yesterday our client was moved to a shared cell with nine other people," Krasnov said. The lawyer said he did not know the reason for this. Lebedev had spent most of his sentence up until now in a hospital cell.

Lebedev is being held at the Matrosskaya Tishina prison. He was found guilty of fraud and tax evasion on May 31, 2005 and sentenced to nine years in a low-security prison.