A Moscow court ordered Mikhail Khodorkovsky transferred from a Siberian prison to a detention facility in the Russian capital amid a new investigation into theft and money laundering charges against the former oil tycoon, The Associated Press news agency reported on Tuesday quoting Khodorkovsky’s lawyer.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, was arrested in 2003 in a tax probe that eventually put the oil company he founded, Yukos, into state hands. He was convicted of fraud and tax evasion and has been serving an eight-year sentence in the Siberian city of Chita, about 3,000 miles east of Moscow.

Prosecutors filed new charges last month, accusing Khodorkovsky of stealing property worth nearly $34.3 billion from Yukos subsidiaries.

His lawyer Yuri Shmidt told The Associated Press that the Basmanny District Court overturned prosecutors’ decision to base their investigation in Chita and keep him in custody there. The ruling means Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, who faces similar charges, will be moved to Moscow during the investigation.

Court officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

“This will make working on the case much easier for us,” Shmidt said. “Chita is not Moscow, media coverage is better here, public opinion is stronger.”

Khodorkovsky has denied the new charges against him as “shameful farce.” His legal team has long insisted that the company’s business structure was legal and had been meticulously audited by foreign consultants to meet international standards.

The trial of Khodorkovsky was widely seen as Kremlin-driven punishment for challenging President Vladimir Putin.

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