MOSCOW, September 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Ex-head of the Bashneft oil producer Ural Rakhimov has asked the court to rule the launch of a criminal case on stealing company stock against him to be illegal.

“The court has received a request in which Rakhimov asks it to rule the criminal case against him illegal. The date for consideration of this request has not been set yet,” Basmanny court spokeswoman Anna Fadeyeva told Itar-Tass.

Billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov, chairman and majority owner of the Russian diversified holding company AFK Sistema, was placed on Tuesday under house arrest on suspicion of involvement in a money-laundering scheme with the assets of oil companies in Bashkortostan, which are now part of Bashneft controlled by the tycoon.

Russian investigators accuse Yevtushenkov of involvement in a money-laundering scheme, in which Sistema acquired Bashkortostan’s oil firms that had been earlier privatized by Ural Rakhimov, a son of the republic’s former head, Murtaza Rakhimov.