Khodorkovsky's defense to call finance minister as witness

MOSCOW, March 11 (RIA Novosti) - The defense team acting for the Yukos founder and his business partner plan to summon Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to testify in a new trial of their clients, one of the lawyers said on Wednesday.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, already in prison after convictions on tax evasion and theft charges described by many critics as politically motivated, now face a new trial accused of embezzlement and money laundering totaling about $50 billion.

"Kudrin signed a series of regulatory documents ... Being law-abiding citizens Khodorkovsky and Levedev were guided by them [in their business decisions], and we would like Kudrin to give testimony at the trial," Konstantin Rivkin, who is acting for Lebedev, said without elaborating further.

Another lawyer, Yelena Liptser, confirmed the defense would press for Kudrin, who is also a deputy prime minister, to testify in the trial. She said other former senior officials were also on the list of witnesses for the defense in the case, but declined to name them.

The Finance Ministry said on Wednesday it had received no subpoenas or other documents from the court requesting Kudrin to testify. "No official documents to this effect have been sent to the ministry," an official said.

Preliminary hearings in the new case against Khodorkovsky, 45, and Lebedev, 42, who are serving eight-year sentences, started in Moscow last Tuesday. The defense lawyers have described the charges as "ridiculous," and said prosecutors lacked evidence of the crimes.

Rivkin also said on Wednesday the defense team has asked for the dismissal of two prosecutors in the new trial, who had submitted evidence that was not true.

The defense earlier sought the dismissal of the presiding judge accusing him of bias. He refused to step down, saying there were no grounds for his dismissal.

Once Russia's largest oil producer, Yukos collapsed after charges of tax evasion led to the company being broken up and sold off to meet debts. The bulk of the company's assets were bought up by state-run oil company Rosneft and it was declared bankrupt in 2006.