Yukos offers share swap for chief

Mr Khodorkovsky has been in jail since October

Key shareholders of Russian oil firm Yukos have offered their stakes to the state in return for the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, its former chief.

Mr Khodorkovsky was jailed last October on charges of fraud and tax evasion, something allies have argued was politically motivated.

Now, Group Menatep, a finance house which owns 44% of Yukos, has said it will forfeit its shares to the state.

According to Menatep, the shares on offer are worth $14.6bn (£7.7bn).

"Life and liberty are more valuable than shares," said Menatep shareholder Leonid Nevzlin.

In addition to Mr Khodorkovsky, the Russian authorities are holding Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev, and former security chief Alexei Pichugin.

Mr Nevzlin and two other large shareholders have fled to Israel.

Murky business

According to Mr Nevzlin, the offer covers all of Menatep's assets, and not just its holding in Yukos.

But he has also said that Menatep intends only to cede control of Yukos, and to remain a shareholder in the firm.

The Interfax news agency has quoted an official at the Russian Prosecutor General's Office as saying that Nevzlin's suggestion was without merit.

"Nobody is going to react to a proposal which is absurd from both the legal and moral point of view," the official is reported to have said.

One Russian analyst, who asked not to be named also poured scorn on Mr Nevzlin's suggestion.

Restructuring

"It's not a serious offer," said the analyst.

"If you try to bribe a traffic cop you don't wave the money around in the air."

The Menatep picture is further complicated by a recent report that said it was in the process of restructuring its ownership, in order to hide the identities of its shareholders.

Menatep, originally a High Street bank, was Mr Khodorkovsky's investment vehicle during the 1990s, and at one point controlled a wide portfolio including media and industrial interests.

According to its website, its main assets now are interests in holding companies in the financial, telecoms, chemicals and mining industries - a structure that makes its actual portfolio difficult to pin down.