Prosecutors filed new money laundering charges on Monday against jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner, opening a new front in Russia's campaign against nation's one-time richest man.
Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yuri Schmidt, said prosecutors in the Siberian city of Chita had indicted his client on charges of laundering more than $20 billion in illegal oil revenues. Schmidt said the charges were "not simply absurd they are insane. ... Whoever wrote them was either mad or drunk."
A Web site maintained by Khodorkovsky's supporters published a statement saying prosecutors had also filed same charges against Khodorkovsky's business partner Platon Lebedev. Both men insisted on their innocence.
The founder of the now-bankrupt oil giant OAO Yukos, Khodorkovsky has been serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian prison camp after being convicted in 2004 on fraud and tax evasion charges following a politically charged trial. Lebedev also is serving eight years on these charges.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were moved in December to a detention center in Chita for questioning, and brought to the regional prosecutor's office on Monday for their formal indictment amid tight security measures.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/Intl_Business/Laundering_charges_filed_against_Yukos_Mikhail_Khodorkovsky/articleshow/1565105.cms
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