A Moscow court has dismissed an appeal by a key shareholder in embattled Russian oil firm YUKOS against a ruling that he be held in custody until March 30th.
Mr Platon Lebedev's arrest last July was the first blow in what is widely viewed as a Kremlin-led legal campaign against Russia's largest oil firm aimed at its politically ambitious former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is also in detention.
Lebedev, who owns some 3 per cent of YUKOS and is a close ally of Mr Khodorkovsky, is awaiting trial on charges including fraud and tax evasion.
Mr Lebedev's lawyer said his client's health had deteriorated while he had been in jail and he had been put in the prison hospital's infectious diseases unit.
Last week, another major YUKOS shareholder, Vasily Shakhnovsky, was convicted of tax evasion.
