RUSSIA: Moscow investigators searched the former businesses and charitable foundation of jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky yesterday, as his lawyers launched a further appeal in Russia's most high-profile law case.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, lost his appeal against conviction for fraud and tax evasion last week and has begun serving an eight-year sentence.
His website announced that investigators visited a series of offices of the oil company he founded, Yukos, and had also raided the offices of a Yukos lawyer and a charitable foundation Khodorkovsky donates to.
The raids come as he launches a further appeal, likely to be his last, against last week's decisions, with the presidium of the Moscow Court.
This appeal, in effect an appeal against the appeal, argues that last week's appeal judges failed to hear all the evidence in the case.
It marks the latest episode in a trial saga that began with the tycoon's arrest two years ago this month. Since then Khodorkovsky, once heir to a $12 billion fortune, has seen most assets of Yukos sold to the state in lieu of back taxes, and has lost billions of dollars of wealth.
A separate appeal is being drawn up by his lawyers for the European Court of Human Rights. Meanwhile, legal bosses have announced they are to meet later this month to consider an appeal by prosecutors to have three of Khodorkovsky's lawyers disbarred. The lawyers, Anton Drel, Denis Dyatlev and Yelena Levina, were last week accused of "ruining" the appeals hearing by prosecutors after delays in the case starting. The lawyers insisted illness made the delay inevitable.
Khodorkovsky's Canadian lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, had earlier claimed he was given an ultimatum to leave the country or be expelled.
The case is widely seen in Moscow as being influenced by the Kremlin, as punishment after the tycoon began funding opposition parties.
His supporters claim the charges brought against him are baseless and complained that last week's appeal hearing, completed in a single day, did not hear all the facts of the case.
Last week's appeal decision came just in time to prevent Khodorkovsky from registering to run in elections for Moscow city council on December 4th, a poll seen as a key test of the Kremlin's popularity.