Khodorkovsky says new charges a Kremlin ploy

MOSCOW, Feb 7 (Reuters) Jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said today new charges against him were part of a Kremlin ploy to prevent him winning early release and mounting a political challenge.

Once Russia's richest man and an influential power broker, Khodorkovsky is serving eight years in prison on fraud and tax evasion charges he says his enemies in the Kremlin fabricated to punish him for his political ambitions.

Khodorkovsky and business associate Platon Lebedev were charged on Monday with laundering over billion dollars. If found guilty, 10 years or more could be added to his sentence.

''It is absolutely clear what will happen next: Fake evidence, testimony from intimidated witnesses and a quick guilty verdict,'' Khodorkovsky said in a statement written from his prison cell in eastern Siberia.

''It is also completely clear why this is being done. Those people who invented the 'Khodorkovsky case' ... are afraid of seeing me on the outside and want to insure themselves against my early release,'' said the statement on the tycoon's Web site www.khodorkovsky.ru.

Russian officials deny any involvement in Khodorkovsky's prosecution and say he is cynically casting himself as a political dissident to cover up criminal activity that netted him billions of dollars.

A US State Department spokesman said this week the new charges against Khodorkovsky ''raise questions about the rule of law in Russia.'' Khodorkovsky, the founder of the YUKOS oil giant that has now been dismantled to meet massive back tax claims, is entitled to apply for early release from October this year but a conviction on new charges would rule this out.

REUTERS AB PM1818