YUKOS shareholder wanted for contract killing

A Moscow court has issued an arrest warrant for a leading shareholder in YUKOS, the oil giant teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, accusing him of arranging a murder, the prosecutor's office said yesterday.

Leonid Nevzlin, a close associate of YUKOS founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was already wanted for economic crimes and fled to Israel after Khodorkovsky's arrest last October.

The prosecutor general's office said in a statement that Nevzlin had arranged for YUKOS security chief Alexei Pichugin to kill a married couple because they feared the husband could blackmail them with evidence of other crimes.

"Enough evidence... has been gathered about how L. Nevzlin, a director of YUKOS and vice chairman of YUKOS-Moskva, entered a criminal plot with A. Pichugin... to murder specific people who were a danger to Nevzlin and Pichugin themselves," it said.

Nevzlin's lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov said his client knew of the accusation.

"Since the case has not yet come before the court, we haven't had a chance to familiarise ourselves with it, but we will of course challenge it," Kharitonov told Itar-Tass news agency.

Pichugin was arrested for the couple's murder in June 2003. Back tax bills of almost $7 billion have crippled YUKOS, which - despite pumping more oil than Libya - has repeatedly warned of impending bankruptcy.

With its assets and accounts frozen by courts, the firm has said its cash could run out next month. Its shares hit a 30-month low yesterday.

Nevzlin is also wanted on charges of embezzling $39 million and tax evasion totalling 26.7 million roubles ($920,000).

Khodorkovsky, one of Russia's wealthiest men, is on trial for fraud and tax evasion, a case analysts see as politically motivated.

Nevzlin has said Khodorkovsky was arrested for "moving the country in a (democratic) direction the government did not want it to go".