Yukos Figure Is Accused of Murder

Prosecutors raised the stakes Monday against the Russian oil company Yukos, charging that billionaire shareholder Leonid Nevzlin had organized two murders and at least three attempted murders targeting perceived enemies of the company.

The accusation marks a serious escalation in what had mainly been a case of tax evasion and fraud against senior shareholders of the Russian oil giant. Nevzlin, who is in self-imposed exile in Israel, was the closest confidant of former Chief Executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky and was first deputy chairman of the governing board of Yukos’ biggest subsidiary, Yukos-Moscow. He fled Russia and obtained Israeli citizenship late last year.

In a statement released Monday, the general prosecutor’s office said it had “direct evidence” that Nevzlin gave instructions to former Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin for the 2002 killing of a former associate and his wife, and also for three attempted killings, including the bombing of the apartment of a former advisor to the Moscow mayor.

Pichugin already faces murder charges and has denied involvement in the plots. He said a statement he made to interrogators while in prison was extracted with the use of psychotropic drugs.

The new charges also accuse Nevzlin of organizing an attempt to kill a former Yukos joint venture partner, Yevgeny Rybin, who had threatened to go to authorities with information about Yukos’ alleged attempts to hide profits from tax officials.

Rybin was shot at as he left the home of a Yukos vice president in 1998, and his car was hit with an explosive device in 1999. He was unharmed in both attacks, but his driver died in the blast.

Rybin returned to Moscow from Vienna in November to give testimony to the prosecutor’s office. In an interview with The Times that month, he said he was convinced that Yukos officials were behind the attempts on his life.

Yukos officials have said Rybin’s claims are baseless and were discredited when he lost lawsuits he filed against the company because of failed business deals. Nevzlin filed a letter this month with the Russian prosecutor general seeking protection from Rybin and others, who he said were attempting to blackmail him.

Nevzlin’s lawyer, Dmitry V. Kharitonov, said it was “absolutely inexplicable” how any connection could be made between Nevzlin and the attacks, and analysts said it was possible the government was using the new charges to diminish Western support for Yukos management and drive down the company’s share price.

In a separate $3.4-billion tax case, federal tax authorities are preparing to sell Yukos’ key production facility, Yuganskneftegaz, which the company has valued at more than $30 billion.

Yukos’ share price dropped 21% Monday in the wake of the murder charges, closing at a three-year low of $4.20.

“No one doubts that there is a firm intention to fragment the company, reduce its capitalization and sell such Yukos tidbits as Yuganskneftegaz as cheaply as possible and into the right hands,” said Andrei V. Ryabov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.

The new charges help provide public justification for such a campaign, Ryabov added.

“The prosecutor’s office expects to look as if it is doing the rest of the world a huge favor by punishing the criminals who ran Yukos,” he said.

Kharitonov, Nevzlin’s lawyer, said the charges attempt to create a “sinister” image of the oil company to justify the government’s case, and to pressure Israel, which has no extradition treaty with Russia, to hand Nevzlin over for trial.

Nevzlin already faced charges of tax evasion and embezzlement, and was the subject of an international arrest warrant upon which Israeli authorities did not act.

The new charges, Kharitonov said, “effectively shatter the reputation of Yukos as a transparent company, a company operating by Western standards, because according to the prosecution, one of Yukos’ top officials commissioned murders of people. This is crazy!”

In a statement released by his lawyer, Khodorkovsky, who is on trial for fraud and tax evasion, said Nevzlin continued to be a “friend.”

“I am very sorry that some people ... would use such monstrous methods and accusations,” he said.

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.