The Major Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee continue investigation in the murder of Nefteyugansk mayor Vladimir Petukhov committed on 26 June 1998 and attempted murder of Vyacheslav Koshkin who was accompanying him, as well as attempted murders of East Petroleum HandelsGes m.b.h. executive Yevgheny Rybin committed on 24 November 1998 and 5 March 1999 during which his bodyguard was shot to death and two more people accompanying him were wounded.

After Leonid Nevzlin, Aleksey Pichugin, Gennady Tsigelnik, Yevgheny Reshetnikov, Vladimir Shapiro had been convicted of the crimes, the investigators kept on working until 2015 to identify all accomplices of the crimes and its organizers in the first place.

It has been revealed that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was involved in the crimes and played especially active part in them, as not a single important decision in Yukos was made without Khodorkovsky’s word of command.

According to investigators, it was Khodorkovsky, who while being the shareholder and chairman of the Yukos board of directors, ordered his inferiors Nevzlin and Pichugin and some others to kill Petukhov and Rybin, whose work contradicted the interests of Yukos.

It is absolutely evident for the investigators that the crimes were committed out of mercenary motives. This way, they had decided to kill Petukhov because as the mayor of Nefteyugansk he had had every right to demand from Yukos to return all taxes hidden from the state. The attempted murder of Yevgheny Rybin was linked to the actions he had filed against Yukos to recover damage done by illegal activity of the oil company.

The investigators have managed to get some new evidence and considering this, a warrant against Mikhail Khodorkovsky was issued on 11 December 2015. He is accused of crimes under  part 3 of article 33, paragraphs “a’, “b”, “f”, “g” and “h” of part 2 of article 105 and part 3 of article 30, part 3 of article 33, paragraphs “a’, “b”, “f”, “g” and “h” of part 2 of article 105, part 2 of article 105 of the RF Penal Code (organization of murder and attempted murder of two or more people). As Khodorkovsky has failed to show up in the Investigative Committee, he is going to be put on a wanted list soon.

I can assure you that the principle of unavoidability of punishment the Investigative Committee has always been guided by in its activity will work in this case, too.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                                              V.I. Markin