MOSCOW, March 22 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office appealed a Moscow district court's ruling that a new investigation into Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev cannot be conducted in Siberia, a spokesman for Moscow's City Court said Thursday.
Moscow's Basmanny Court ruled Tuesday that a preliminary investigation in East Siberia into new money laundering charges against the former head of the bankrupt oil company Yukos and his business partner is illegal.
The court granted an appeal by Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's lawyers demanding that the investigation be conducted in Moscow. Lawyer Yury Shmidt said Tuesday both men must be transferred to Moscow if the court's ruling comes into force.
Commenting on the prosecutors' appeal, Shmidt said, "The ruling by the Basmanny Court was justified so that they (the prosecutors) cannot have any arguments at all."
He said the Prosecutor General's Office should regard the Basmanny Court's ruling as "inevitable".
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, both of whom are serving eight-year sentences in East Siberia for fraud and tax evasion, were charged with money laundering February 5. In mid-December they were transferred to a pre-trial investigation center near the city of Chita at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office.
The Prosecutor General's Office is now accusing Khodorkovsky and Lebedev of stealing $32 billion-worth of oil from Samaraneftegaz, Yuganskneftegaz and Tomskneft in 1998-2003, which the two businessmen allegedly documented as "oil-well liquid."
Prosecutors said they later resold the oil to end customers for triple the price via bogus firms registered both inside and outside Russia. The scheme helped launder a total of 450 billion rubles ($17 billion) and $7.5 billion, prosecutors said.
The Basmanny Court said the investigation cannot be conducted in Chita as that would be a violation of the constitutional right of defense.
The Prosecutor General's Office can appeal against the ruling within 10 days, as it has not come into effect yet.
Shmidt said earlier that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev had not admitted their guilt and considered the new charges "absurd and mad."
The Prosecutor General's Office also 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, who acquired oil assets through controversial privatization deals in the early-1990s, has insisted his prosecution was orchestrated by the authorities to silence his criticism of President Vladimir Putin and as part of a campaign to bring mineral assets under Kremlin control.
