The Associated Press, by Vladimir Isachenkov, 30 June 2008

Authorities on Monday filed new preliminary charges against the man who founded Russia's Yukos oil company, his lawyers said.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky's attorneys dismissed the charges as "the same set of absurd and unfounded claims" that were filed against their client in February 2007.

That year, additional theft and money-laundering charges were filed, accusing Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev of stealing oil worth more than $34 billion from Yukos.

The charges focused on allegations that they organized the illegal acquisition of crude oil from Yukos subsidiaries as "well fluid," then sold it at a higher price through a web of trading companies.

In their statement Monday on their Web site, Khodorkovsky's lawyers said the new charges appeared to reflect uncertainty among the investigators after the change of power in the Kremlin and their desire to "buy time while waiting for new directions and a confirmation of support from the top."

Officials at Russia's Prosecutor General's office, which oversees the investigation, were unavailable to comment on the lawyers' statement Monday evening.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was convicted in 2005 of fraud and tax evasion, and sentenced to eight years in prison, in a case that many critics called Kremlin revenge for his criticism and apparent political ambitions.

Yuri Schmidt, one of Khodorkovsky's lawyers, said last week he advised his client to appeal for early release from his Siberian prison, now that Vladimir Putin is no longer Russia's president.

Schmidt said Khodorkovsky has not yet decided whether to take that step.

Schmidt voiced hope that Russia's courts could be more objective after President Dmitry Medvedev's inauguration last month.

Medvedev has pledged to hold human rights sacred and to protect people from ordinary Russians to foreign investors by fighting corruption and abuse of the justice system.

His words have prompted hope in Russia and abroad for change from Putin, who was widely accused of rolling back Russian democracy and using the justice system as a tool to strengthen the Kremlin's power.

Yukos, once Russia's largest oil producer, was broken up and sold off in auctions ordered by the state to pay off billions of dollars in alleged back taxes. Much of the company's assets were purchased by the state-controlled oil company OAO Rosneft, making that company Russia's largest oil producer.

Khodorkovsky and his supporters have blamed senior Putin aide and Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin of being a driving force behind the crackdown on Yukos.

Dow Jones, 30 June 2008

Russian prosecutors on Monday filed new charges against imprisoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, his lawyer said, accusing the authorities of trying to draw out the inquiry.

"A new charge was presented on June 30...It's the same collection of absurd and unproven declarations about the alleged theft of all the oil extracted by Yukos over six years," the lawyer, Yury Schmidt, said.

Schmidt said the fact that Khodorkovsky was warned on his 45th birthday on June 26 that he would face new charges showed the "petty and vindictive character of those who are behind this criminal initiative."
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was arrested in 2003 when his jet was stormed by armed police on a runway in Siberia. He is now serving out an eight-year sentence for fraud in a remote prison in eastern Russia.

The case was used by then president Vladimir Putin to assert his power over Russia's most influential tycoons and analysts say it marked the start of a rise in state control over the country's lucrative energy sector.

"We are sure that, whatever the legal intrigues, if this case goes to a court that shows even the smallest signs of independence there will be a complete collapse of the invented accusation," Schmidt said.

The lawyer said the new charges showed "the uncertainty of investigators and...their desire to procrastinate to get new testimonies and a confirmation of support from above," a reference to Russia's new President Dmitry Medvedev.