Court orders exiled tycoon's arrest

A Russian court has placed ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on an international wanted list over the 1990s murder of a Siberian mayor.

Mr Khodorkovsky has been living in exile in Europe since he was pardoned by President Vladimir Putin in 2013 after 10 years in jail for fraud.

He told the BBC he was considering applying for political asylum in Britain as one of several options.

Russia’s once-richest man said the authorities had “gone mad”.

Mr Khodorkovsky is accused of ordering several of his employees to kill both the mayor and a businessman, who survived.

Investigators allege Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk, was killed on 26 June 1998 for demanding Mr Khodorkovsky’s oil firm, Yukos, pay taxes that the company had been avoiding.

Local businessman Yevgeny Rybin was allegedly targeted because his activities “clashed with Yukos’s interests”, Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee (SK) said in a statement (in Russian) as it announced his arrest in absentia.

Mr Rybin survived a gun attack in November 1998 and a second attack on his car in March 1999, when another man in the vehicle was killed and several people were injured.

Five people have already been tried for the attacks and the arrest warrant is unlikely to make any difference unless Mr Khodorkovsky returns to Russia, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford reported from Moscow.

Source-BBC