Yukos owners to cede control if allies freed

A key shareholder in Russia's embattled oil giant Yukos, in exile in Israel, said yesterday he and his partners were ready to surrender control of the company if its former chief executive was let out of jail.

Leonid Nevzlin, a close associate of the imprisoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky, told Reuters he believed the oil tycoon was being held hostage by the authorities and that the Kremlin was out to obtain control of the company, worth around $33 billion.

"We are offering them a choice - free the hostages and we will be ready to talk about ceding the controlling stake... We can remain portfolio investors," he said.

Mr Khodorkovsky was arrested in October on charges of fraud and tax evasion. Fellow shareholder Platon Lebedev has been in jail since July on similar charges and Yukos's former security chief Alexei Pichugin was arrested in June, accused of murder.

"The ultimate goal of the authorities is to prevent us from holding a controlling stake. We say OK, this can be a subject for discussion," Mr Nevzlin said by telephone from Israel.