Fresh charges: levelled at Mikhail Khodorkovsky
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Khodorkovsky faces new fraud charges
Russian prosecutors are set to file new embezzlement and theft charges against jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev.
The Prosecutor General's office alleged in a statement released on Monday that Khodorkovsky - the founder of former oil giant Yukos - schemed with a group of Yukos investors to cheat Siberian-based player Eastern Oil Company of 3.6 billion roubles ($102 million).
“Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin has approved the indictment in the criminal case against former Yukos chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky and former Menatep chief executive Platon Lebedev,” a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, Marina Gridneva, told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Gridneva said: “It was established during the preliminary investigation that the defendants acting in an organised group involving the main shareholders of tYukos and other persons committed a theft by embezzling shares of subsidiaries of the Eastern Oil Company from 6 November 1997 to 12 June 1998 in the amount of 3.6 billion roubles, legalised the stolen shares of the subsidiaries of the Eastern Oil Company.
“Individuals and legal entities that incurred large and very large damage due to the defendant’s activities have been recognised as victims and civil claimants in the case,” she added.
She said the case would be transferred to court “shortly”.
In May 2005, Moscow's Meshchansky Court found Khodorkovsky and Lebedev guilty of a number of fraud, theft and embezzlement charges and sentenced them to nine years in prison.
The Moscow City Court later reduced the term to eight years.
In February 2007, the Prosecutor General's Office brought new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, accusing them of having laundered 450 billion roubles and $7.5 billion between 1998 and 2004 by stealing state-owned shares, as well as embezzling oil and legalising earnings from its sale.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are currently held in prison near the Siberian town of Chita.
Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man. A court in August rejected his request for parole.
Yukos was broken up and its main assets were sold to a state-controlled company in what was seen as the Kremlin's punishment for Khodorkovsky's political ambitions.