Yukos Shareholder Nevzlin on Wanted List; Shares Fall

Shares in OAO Yukos Oil Co., the country's biggest oil exporter, tumbled 21 percent after Russia put the company's second-largest owner, Leonid Nevzlin, on a wanted list over charges of attempted murder and murder.

Nevzlin, who lives in Israel, denied the charges, calling them ``laughable'' and the alleged crimes ``non-existent'' in an e-mail. The Basmanny District Court in Moscow ordered the arrest of Nevzlin for cases of three murder attempts and two murders, the Prosecutor General's office said in an e-mail statement.

Yukos and its owners have faced a year-long attack from Russian authorities, who have saddled the company with a $3.4 billion tax bill and accused its largest owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of fraud in charges that could land him in jail for 10 years. A group of U.K. investors last week offered to pay Yukos's bills in exchange for a controlling stake in the company.

``The probability of any agreement with the government is very low,'' said Dmitry Loukashov, an analyst at Moscow brokerage Aton. ``At some point, investors lose hope. More people believe now that Yukos may be torn to pieces.''

Yukos shares closed down 32.21 rubles at 122.05 rubles, the lowest since November 2001, at 7 p.m. in Moscow. The Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange suspended trading in Yukos shares from 5:08 p.m. to 6:08 p.m.

Prosecutors accused Nevzlin of ordering Alexei Pichugin, a Yukos security official, to organize the murders of two Yukos competitors, Vladimir Kolesov in 1998 and Yevgeny Rybin in 1999, and a former Menatep Bank employee, Olga Kostina, in 1998. All three attempts failed, the prosecutors said. Nevzlin and Pichugin then organized the murder of an accomplice and his wife, the prosecutors said.

Pichugin was arrested in June 2003. He has yet to go to trial. Nevzlin fled to Israel last year and has been wanted since January on tax evasion and theft charges that he denies.

In interviews to Bloomberg in February, Nevzlin and another Yukos shareholder residing in Israel, Vladimir Dubov, said they were ready to give up his shares in exchange for the release of Khodorkovsky, Pichugin and another Yukos owner, Platon Lebedev, who also is in custody on tax evasion and fraud charges. Khodorkovsky rejected the proposal.



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