The General Public Prosecution Authority of Russian Federation placed the criminal suit of former mayor of Trekhgorniy Nikolai Lubenets with the court of Trekhgorniy on October 11, 2006.

According to the public prosecution bodies of Chelyabinsk Region, Mr Lubenets is charged with abuse of powers leading to severe damage (the accusation is covered by Article 286 (Parts II and III) of Russian Criminal Code. The preliminary investigation was carried out by the General Public Prosecution Authority of Russian Federation in assistance with the experts from the public prosecution bodies of Chelyabinsk Region.

The prosecution claims that as Mayor, Mr Lubenets had been illegally providing extra tax relief to companies that had no rights to such privilege during the years 1999 and 2000. Those companies were registered within the premises of the city yet they were actually dealing in oil extracting and processing in other Russian regions. Mr Lubenets’s abuse of power allowed a number of people (namely, Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, P. Lebedev, V. Kartashov, and some others) to avoid paying fees and taxes to the federal budget and the budgets of Samara, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk Regions and the budget of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous District. The total damage is estimated at over 10bn RUR.

The public prosecution will be performed by the bodies of Chelyabinsk Region.