A RUSSIAN businessman was targeted by Moscow after he took over the running of Yukos from Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a court heard.

The prosecution of Alexandr Temerko, former deputy chief executive at Yukos, is the latest stage in President Putin’s pursuit of the oil group’s senior management, lawyers for Mr Temerko told Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in Central London.

Mr Temerko, 66, is fighting the Russian Government’s efforts to extradite him from Britain to face trial in Moscow. Prosecutors have accused Mr Temerko of using forged documents to acquire part of Eniseyneftegaz, an oil company.

He is the most senior of four Yukos staff in Britain who have faced requests this year by the Kremlin for their extradition.

Mr Temerko replaced Mr Khodorkovsky as chairman of Yukos after his arrest at gunpoint on his private jet in Siberia, handling its negotiations with the Russian Government over the company’s tax bill.

He fled to London in November after he was questioned by prosecutors over a complaint by Sergei Bogdanchikov, the President of Rosneft, a rival state-owned oil firm. Weeks later, Rosneft acquired Yukos’s oil production unit.

Britain has granted asylum to three other Yukos employees who faced requests for their extradition after the Home Secretary decided that they had a “well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of political opinion”.

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