Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky's defense on Wednesday asked the court hearing a new case against him to summon Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a witness.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers previously said they also wanted to question Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev.
Other high profile witnesses could include former prime ministers Mikhail Kasyanov, Viktor Chernomyrdin and Yevgeny Primakov, as well as State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, former Central Bank chief Viktor Gerashchenko and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov.
The former Yukos CEO ended a hunger strike earlier on Wednesday.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers said their client was going on hunger strike because he believed "the presidential will had been flouted" when Judge Viktor Danilkin on May 14 extended his and his business companion Platon Lebedev's detention in a Moscow prison until August 17.
Once Russia's richest man said the decision violated a decree put forward by President Dmitry Medvedev, stating that individuals charged with economic crimes cannot be held in pre-trial custody.
Khodorkovsky sent a letter to the head of the Supreme Court, Vyacheslav Lebedev, saying his hunger strike, which he began on Monday, would continue until Medvedev was told what was going on.
Medvedev spokesperson Natalya Timakova said on Tuesday that the president had been informed about Khodorkovsky's hunger strike.
Conditions at pre-trial detention facilities where Khodorkovsky is being held are harsher than in an ordinary Russian prison or labor camp. However, his defense counsel said Khodorkovsky was not so much concerned about his own situation as about the ruling setting a precedent for others accused of economic crimes.
Khodorkovsky is already serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion. He is now accused of stealing $9.6 billion from the $15.8 billion profit generated by Yukos between 1999 and 2003, as well as 350 million tons of oil.
Khodorkovsky told Moscow's Khamovniki district court earlier that he could not understand what he was accused of because his specific actions were not described in the criminal case.
MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti)
