The court turned down Mr. Nevzlin's appeal of a July 21 Prosecutor General's Office ruling.
On July 21, the Prosecutor General's Office included Leonid Nevzlin on an international wanted list.
Mr. Nevzlin is charged with organizing a murder and attempted murder (Articles 30, 33 and 105 of the Criminal Code).
Mr. Nevzlin's lawyer, Dmitry Kharitonov said he intended to appeal the Basmanny Court's decision in a higher court, the Moscow City Court. He said the court's ruling was illegal and unfounded.
"Under the code of criminal procedure, the accused can be included on the wanted list if the investigation does not know his place of residence," Mr. Kharitonov said. "However, the Prosecutor General's Office has known that Nevzlin lives in Israel since July 2003."
The Prosecutor General's Office reported that the investigation had collected enough evidence, including direct evidence, that as a member of the Yukos board of directors and as first deputy chief executive officer of Yukos-Moskva, Mr. Nevzlin entered into a criminal agreement with the company's security chief Alexei Pichugin to murder people who were a threat to the company and Mr. Nevzlin and Mr. Pichugin personally.
"In all cases Mr. Nevzlin gave direct instructions to Mr. Pichugin about the planning and execution of the murders," a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office said.
According to the investigators, in the summer of 1998, Mr. Nevzlin and Mr. Pichugin plotted to murder Sergei Kolesov and make it look like a robbery, however their plan failed and Mr. Kolesov was beaten and robbed.
There is evidence that in 1998, Mr. Nevzlin and Mr. Pichugin organized the murder of a certain Olga Kostina, because they believed she was harming Yukos' interests. This time the plan included using an explosive device. However, the woman miraculously survived.
The Prosecutor General's Office spokesman said that in the spring of 1999, an attempt on the life of a Yukos rival, East Petroleum Handelsgas MBH manager Yevgeny Rybin, was made. His car was exploded and shot at, however, Mr. Rybin was not in the car. His driver died.
In Tambov, Sergei Gorin and his wife were murdered. According to investigators, Mr. Gorin was involved in previous crimes with Mr. Pichugin.
"In choosing the arrest warrant as the measure of restrain," the spokesman said, "the court took into consideration that Mr. Nevzlin was accused of especially grave crimes, he does not live where he is registered and he had escaped from investigation agencies. In view of this, he was included in federal and international wanted lists."
In January 2004, the court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Nevzlin for tax evasion and property theft. According to the Prosecutor's Office, Mr. Nevzlin's owes 27 million rubles in unpaid taxes and is accused of stealing 3.3 billion rubles worth property.
