BEIJING,
Feb. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian oil tycoon and his business
partner Platon Lebedev faced a new charging of money laundering and embezzlement
Monday.
The charges of the Russian Prosecutor-General's
Office were read in the Chita regional prosecutor's office.
The Office alleges that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are
guilty of embezzling receipts from Yukos subsidiaries Fargoil and Ratibor, and
of laundering the money through the Open Russia Foundation, a charitable
organization established by Khodorkovsky in 2001 as a private endowment to
assist academic institutions and non-governmental organizations in Russia.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, both serving eight-year
sentences in Siberia since 2005 for fraud and tax evasion, were taken to a
pre-trial detention facility in Chita, in Eastern Siberia, in December 2006.
Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyers said the additional charges
seemed aimed at legitimising the sell-off, which Mr Khodorkovsky's defence team
have branded as "theft".
"They want to give legitimacy to the future auction,"
said Robert Amsterdam, a member of Mr Khodorkovsky's international defence team.
"They think if they keep hitting Khodorkovsky something will stick."
Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison in
May 2005 after being found guilty of fraud and tax evasion. Once being Russia's
richest man who used to be seen hobnobbing with the likes of Bill Gates at
charity events, he had been behind the bars for more than a year.
Khodorkovsky's business partner Platon Lebedev was
also sentenced to nine years in prison by Moscow's Meshchansky Court. The court
gave a third defendant, Andrei Krainov, a five year suspended sentence.
The company Khodorkovsky founded, Yukos, has been all
but crushed by a legal onslaught of back taxes and seen its chunks carved up by
rival companies.
The court also ordered Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to
pay 17.3 billion rubles (617.9 million U.S. dollars) of back taxes owed by their
companies in civil suits filed by the Federal Tax Service.
In addition, Khodorkovsky was found to have evaded
taxes as a private person, which amounted to 54.5 million rubles (1.9 million
dollars) in income tax and fees to extra-budgetary funds.
(Agencies)
