MOSCOW, May 11 - RAPSI, Lyubov Shirizhyk. The Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow has suspended until May 30 its hearing of the criminal case against former YUKOS top manager Alexey Spirichev, who has been charged with tax evasion, his attorney Sergey Kupreichenko told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI) on Friday.

Kupreichenko said Spirichev denied the charges during a telephone call with him.

The court will hear the case in absentia as Spirichev is presently outside Russia.

The Prosecutor General's Office previously attempted to extradite him from Prague, but the request was turned down by a Czech court.

According to investigators, Spirichev and his accomplices, guided by YUKOS heads Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, used to falsify documents of fly-by-night companies in 1998-2001. Based on the false documents, the local administration granted tax benefits to the companies.

As a result, Muskron evaded taxes amounting to 5.4 billion rubles ($179 million) and Business-Oil underpaid 3.7 billion rubles ($122.5 million) in taxes, investigators have claimed.

Additionally, the Prosecutor General's Office has reported that Spirichev issued documents in 2000 indicating that Business-Oil allegedly paid excess taxes, although he knew this claim was untrue. Misled by the documents, the Federal Treasury refunded Business-Oil 44 million rubles ($1.5 million) on December 27, 2000. The funds were reportedly transferred to an account controlled by Lebedev, Khodorkovsky and other YUKOS group members.

Spirichev escaped justice and was placed on the international wanted list in 2004. The court has issued an arrest warrant for him in absentia.

Spirichev was also mentioned when Khodorkovsky's first case was considered by the Meschansky District Court.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were sentenced to eight years behind bars for fraud and tax evasion in 2005. In late 2010, a Moscow district court sentenced them to 14 years in jail for oil theft and money laundering. They were expected to be released in 2017, considering the term they had already served for their convictions from the first trial. However, the Moscow City Court cut their sentences by one year on May 24, 2011.