Russia pressing Nevzlin again
Oil tycoon, now living in Israel, faces murder and other charges; Interpol given new information
MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors have sent documentation to Interpol detailing the involvement of Leonid Nevzlin, a core shareholder in the scandal-ridden Russian oil company Yukos who now lives in Israel, in a murder.
Nevzlin fled Russia for Israel as a tax and criminal campaign against Yukos and its owners gathered pace in 2003. Once valued at USD 2 billion by Forbes magazine, Nevzlin didn't figure on this year's billionaires list, as Yukos' value has plummeted in the wake of a government corruption and criminal clampdown.
Russian police investigators have been reported as saying that Alexei Pichugin, who has been accused of organizing the killing of the mayor of a Siberian oil town as well as other, murder-related charges acted under direct orders from Nevzlin.
In March, a Moscow City Court found Pichugin guilty of organizing a double murder in 2002 as well as an attack on the head of the Moscow mayor's communication service. Nevzlin is also accused of ordering those attacks.
Pichugin has dismissed the charges as part of a Kremlin-instigated crackdown on Yukos, whose founder has been sentenced to nine years on tax and fraud charges in May. Prosecutors have said that additional money-laundering charges are pending.
The company, once the largest Russian oil producer, saw its most lucrative oil fields transferred to state oil company against a disputed USD 28 billion tax bill, in what observers say was a bid to punish the company's political ambitions and recapture state control of the strategic oil sector.
Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov did not specify whether the materials had been sent to Israel, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.
"The Prosecutor General's Office hopes that Nevzlin will be extradited to Russia and receive the punishment his crimes deserve," he said adding that extra materials regarding the charges against Nevzlin had been sent on June 16.
Israel has said in the past it is not interested in extraditing Nevzlin or other Russian fugitives in the country.
"They are Israeli citizens and that's it," spokesman for Sharon Asaf Shariv said in April before Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit.
Associated Press and Russian news agency RIA Novosti contributed to this report
