Russia said yesterday it had issued an arrest warrant charging a core shareholder of oil giant Yukos - now hiding in Israel - with murder, dealing a new blow to the country's top oil producer and its jailed chief Mikhail Khodorkovksy. Leonid Nevzlin, the second largest Yukos shareholder, is accused of ordering the murder of a married couple in 2002 and trying to organise other attacks. Khodorkovsky said through his lawyer that the charges were "preposterous" and motivated by a state-led campaign to prosecute Yukos executives for growing too rich and powerful. But the Russian prosecutor's office said that investigators had "collected enough information, including direct sources that Nevzlin struck a criminal pact" with the head of the Yukos security service to organise the murders. Nevzlin's defence called the charges politically motivated while Nevzlin himself was not immediately available for comment. "He would prefer not to speak to reporters today," Nevzlin's wife Tatyana said by telephone from Israel. He faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted but Russia and Israel do not have an extradition agreement and authorities refused to confirm if they have asked for Nevzlin's return to Russia. Yukos stock closed down 21.5 per cent on the main RTS index. The company's market capitalisation is now one fourth of what it was before Khodorkovsky's arrest in August 2003. The warrant for Nevzlin's arrest was issued by the Basmanny court - the same one that has overseen all of the arrests of top Yukos owners and has refused repeated appeals to release the defendants on bail pending their trials. Nevzlin fled to Israel just months before the arrest of Yukos founder Khodorkovsky - Russia's richest man who is on trial along with another major company shareholder on charges that include tax evasion and fraud. The court statement yesterday said the killings and the attempted murders were organised by Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin on the orders of Nevzlin. Pichugin has been in jail awaiting trial on the same charges since June 2003. "I believe that this is an artificial case. Its main purpose is to compromise and soil the reputation of Nevzlin," Nevzlin's lawyer Genry Reznik told Moscow Echo radio. This is "a reflection of certain current authorities' hate" of Yukos and its founders. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Former YUKOS boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky waits in his cage during proceedings in his fraud and tax evasion trial in Moscow, July 23, 2004. (REUTERS)