Russian prosecutors today brought new charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a move likely to bury the politically ambitious tycoon's hopes of release from jail before 2008 presidential elections.
Khodorkovksy, the founder of the YUKOS oil major and once one of Russia's wealthiest and most powerful men , will now be tried on money-laundering charges, his lawyer said.
He is already serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion Money laundering is punishable in Russia by up to 10 years in prison. If the charges are proved in court, some of the new sentence could be added to Khodorkovsky's existing term.
"One thing all lawyers agree on is that the new charges are absurd," Khodorkovsky's lawyer Karina Moskalenko said by telephone. "They are crazy from start to end." Khodorkovsky's business associate Platon Lebedev was also charged with similar offences today.
He too is serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion. The Russia's Prosecutor-General's office later released a statement confirming the new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.
Khodorkovsky's imprisonment has been widely seen as part of a Kremlin campaign to punish him for his involvement in politics, a taboo for tycoons under President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin has denied any political motivation behind the trial, which ended in May 2005. But the United State's State Department said the new charges raised fresh questions about Russia's commitment to democracy and free market economics.
"The continued prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the dismantlement of Yukos raise serious questions about the rule of law in Russia," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at his daily briefing. Under Russian law, Khodorkovsky could apply for early release from October this year, when he will have served half of his sentence.