Russia wants Khodorkovsky arrested abroad on murder charges
Updated: 2015-12-24 10:36
(Agencies)
|
||||||||
Former Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky speaks during a Reuters Newsmaker event at Canary Wharf in London, Britain, November 26, 2015. [Photo/Agencies] |
MOSCOW - Russia has issued an international arrest warrant for Mikhail Khodorkovsky on suspicion of ordering a contract killing, investigators said on Wednesday, prompting the former oil tycoon to declare the Kremlin had gone mad.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was pardoned by Putin in 2013 and freed after a decade in jail on fraud charges he says were politically motivated.
He accused Putin in November of leading Russia into a 1970s Soviet-style period of stagnation that could eventually trigger the country's collapse. Earlier this month he said a peaceful revolution was "inevitable" .
Russian investigators said they had concluded that Khodorkovsky, then head of the now defunct Yukos oil company, had ordered subordinates to kill Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk, a Siberian oil town, in 1998.
Petukhov was shot dead by a gunman near his office.
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee, said Khodorkovsky's motive for allegedly ordering the official's murder was related to Petukhov's demands for Yukos to pay local taxes he said it was evading.
"WANTED FUGITIVE"
Markin said Khodorkovsky had also ordered the killing of a businessman, Evgeny Rybin, who was shot at in 1998 and had his car bombed the following year but survived.
"For the investigation, it is completely obvious that these crimes were carried out for mercenary motives," Markin said in a statement. "We declare Mikhail Khodorkovsky a wanted fugitive internationally."
Khodorkovsky denies the allegations and condemned the decision, suggesting it was politically motivated.
"They have gone mad," he said of the Kremlin, saying his arrest in absentia had been approved "without any obvious facts."
He told a news conference earlier this month that the Kremlin had been using the Petukhov murder case against him since 2003 to punish him for speaking out about corruption in Russia.
"The murder was solved that same year, 1998, and the presumed perpetrators were arrested. (But) for some reason, they were then freed and were subsequently killed," he said.
Khodorkovsky left Russia immediately after being released in 2013, and now spends his time mostly in London and Switzerland.
A spokesman for Putin said there was no contradiction between the president pardoning Khodorkovsky and the businessman then being declared an international fugitive.
"The head of state takes decisions about pardoning people on the basis of appeals, but a decision about an investigation or declaring someone a fugitive ... is not taken by him. It is taken by investigators," said the spokesman.
- Girl becomes youngest Master of Memory
- Whatever the shape or size of a tree, Merry Christmas!
- The world in photos: Dec 14 - 20
- First American woman who works as captain for a Chinese airline
- Life of a family amid Beijing's red alert smog
- External coffin lid of 2,000-year-old Chinese tomb opened
- First Miss Iraq named in decades
- Iraq holds its first beauty contest in 40 years
Most Viewed
Editor's Picks
8 highlights about V-day Parade |
Glimpses of Tibet: Plateaus, people and faith |
Chinese entrepreneurs remain optimistic despite economic downfall |
50th anniversary of Tibet autonomous region |
Tianjin explosions: Deaths, destruction and bravery |
Cinemas enjoy strong first half |
Today's Top News
Shooting rampage at US social services agency leaves 14 dead
Chinese bargain hunters are changing the retail game
Chinese president arrives in Turkey for G20 summit
Islamic State claims responsibility for Paris attacks
Obama, Netanyahu at White House seek to mend US-Israel ties
China, not Canada, is top US trade partner
Tu first Chinese to win Nobel Prize in Medicine
Huntsman says Sino-US relationship needs common goals
US Weekly
Geared to go |
The place to be |