Khodorkovsky to journey to Moscow

A Moscow court has ordered the transfer of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon accused of fraud and tax evasion, to Moscow from a detention centre in Chita, Siberia, for the new hearing.

Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev are now charged with embezzling nearly one trillion rubles and laundering more than 400 billion roubles.

The exact date of the hearing against the former Yukos co-owners remains unknown.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia and Yukos CEO, was arrested in 2003. In 2005 he and his partner Lebedev were convicted of multiple charges and sentenced to eight years in prison.

In late 2006 a second criminal case for money laundering was brought against Khodorkovsky, whereupon he was moved from the penal colony in the Chita region, where he had been serving his sentence, to a detention centre in the same region.