FT.com / World - Khodorkovsky ‘laundered $23bn’

By Catherine Belton in Moscow

Published: February 9 2007 13:55 | Last updated: February 9 2007 15:01

Russian prosecutors on Friday said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed Yukos oil tycoon, laundered more than $23bn (€18bn, £12bn), in Yukos oil sales, disclosing the first details of charges that could keep the Kremlin opponent in jail for a further 10 years.

The prosecutors made their first full statement on fresh charges brought against Mr Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev earlier this week.

They said Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev had illegally acquired more than $25bn worth of oil from Yukos subsidiaries from 1998 to 2003, passing the crude off as “well fluid” and then selling it on to consumers at prices three or four times higher. The pair are also accused of laundering the proceeds.

The prosecutors said they were also charging the two former tycoons with siphoning off shares in Eastern Oil Company in 1998 that should have belonged to the state.

Defence lawyers for Mr Khodorkovsky have said the new charges are part of a political effort to keep him behind bars beyond presidential elections in 2008 and to prevent him from funding opposition parties.

But Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors’ office, said on Friday: “There is nothing political about this. This is a purely criminal case.”

Mr Khodorkovsky maintains his innocence, in part through a website documenting his trial.