Itar-Tass news agency quoted Natalia Vishnyakova, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, as saying on Friday that Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev would soon be facing fresh charges involving money that totaled billions of rubles.
Vishnyakova said the office planned to bring the charges to court as part of its criminal proceedings against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev that opened last December. Khodorkovsky, who has always denied charges of large-scale fraud and tax evasion, is behind bars and awaiting the trial verdict, due this week, which could be a 10-year jail sentence.
These new charges came the same day the now bankrupt Yukos was ordered by the Moscow Arbitration Court to pay 62.4 billion rubles (US$2.2 billion) to Yuganskneftegaz, a former Yukos subsidiary, for past oil bills.
Yuganskneftegaz claimed the bankrupt Yukos had not paid for oil that Yuganskneftegaz shipped to it last July-December as part of an agreement between the two companies, though Interfax quoted Yukos Press Secretary Alexander Shadrin as saying Yukos would appeal the court ruling which it believed was illegal.
Yuganskneftegaz has also claimed compensation from Yukos for 141 billion rubles (US$5 billion) of tax claims for 1999-2003. Yuganskneftegaz, which used to account for over 60% of Yukos' oil output, was auctioned last December.
