RUSSIA:Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of dismantled Russian oil giant Yukos, has been transferred to a new detention facility in eastern Siberia, where he could face new money-laundering charges.
In what appears to be a continuation of the legal assault on the decimated company that he founded, Mr Khodorkovsky has been transferred to a detention facility in the regional capital of Chita, though his lawyers have been unable to see him.
Maxim Dbar, a spokesman for Mr Khodorkovsky's legal team, yesterday said: "No one has met him, but the head of the detention facility confirmed that he had been moved there and said that he was feeling well."
Mr Khodorkovsky was to be questioned by investigators yesterday, but the interrogation was postponed for unexplained reasons, Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yuri Schmidt, said by telephone yesterday from Chita.
Anna Pozdnyakova, spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office, said yesterday that she had no information on the transfer or new charges against Mr Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev. Prison officials could not be reached for comment.
Mr Dbar said Messrs Khodorkovsky and Lebedev could be charged in the next few days with money-laundering offences in connection with two Yukos subsidiaries Fargoil and Ratibor.
In May 2005 the prosecutor general's office said it would slap new charges on Messrs Khodorkovsky and Lebedev involving what it said was more than $6 billion (€4.6 billion) in crude oil sales revenues that Yukos officials illegally transferred out of the country via Fargoil and another Yukos trading arm, Ratibor, which were registered in tax havens inside Russia. Yukos has denied the allegations.
Messrs Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are serving eight-year prison sentences after being convicted of tax evasion and fraud, convictions that Kremlin critics say are politically motivated. - (Guardian service)