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Jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, formerly Russia's richest man, could face a third trial over his activities as head of the Yukos oil giant, prosecutors said in an interview Monday. Just last month, Khodorkovsky was found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering in his second trial and was ordered to remain in prison until 2017, following his first conviction for fraud and tax evasion in 2005. The comments by the two lead prosecutors in the second case came ahead of an appearance by President Dmitry Medvedev at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, where he is expected to be pressed on the issue. "There are 18 accomplices of Khodorkovsky and his (co-accused Platon) Lebedev who are still wanted," prosecutors Valery Lakhtin and Gulchekhra Ibragimova told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily. "If, in the course of the search, new facts of crimes are uncovered, then the investigative organs will be obliged to present new charges and the case to a court," they said. The sentence handed to Khodorkovsky and Lebedev provoked an international outcry. Khodorkovsky's supporters have long contended that he is being persecuted by the state for daring to finance opposition to his nemesis, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. However, the prosecutors said such accusations were a "PR tactic to divert attention from the case." "These were thieves who robbed the state and simple shareholders of billions of dollars. They must and will be in jail," Lakhtin and Ibragimova added. Khordorkovsky's lawyers contended that the charges in the second trial were absurd, as the defendants stood accused of embezzling the equivalent of the entire production of Yukos from 1998 and 2003. AFP |
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