Yukos Denounces Wednesday Searches as Coordinated Attack

Russia?s Yukos oil company has voiced surprise and concern over the searches at its offices in Russia and the Netherlands.

?It is disappointing to us that despite our efforts to engage with the Russian Federation to find an appropriate solution to this ongoing situation, we are once again the focus of an inappropriate, coordinated unfounded series of attacks,? Yukos spokeswoman Claire Davidson was quoted by Associated Press as saying.

The agency also reported that some observers had called the case against Yukos a Kremlin-backed campaign to punish Mikhail Khodorkovsky?s funding of opposition parties in 2003.

On Wednesday authorities searched four company offices in Moscow region, as well as a subsidiary in Amsterdam. Prosecutors said the searches were a part of a $7 billion money-laundering probe. An official statement said investigators had uncovered information suggesting that managers and employees of Yukos had stolen money from 2000-2003 oil sales by paying dividends to front companies overseas.

Russian business daily Kommersant wrote on Thursday that the searches could mean that Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev would face new charges of money laundering soon ? the move that will keep both men in prison in Moscow pending new trial.Without it, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will be sent to a regular prison camp within weeks.

However, Associated Press recalls that even in May 2005 Russian authorities indicated that they were pursuing such charges against Khodorkovsky.