¡¡MOSCOW, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A Russian court Monday turned down an appeal for the release on bail of a prime shareholder in Russia's embattled oil giant Yukos and upheld the ruling of a lower court to keep him in detention until March 30, Russian news agencies reported.

    The Moscow City Court considered the appeal by lawyers of the jailed shareholder, Platon Lebedev, who said the Moscow Basmanny court's ruling to extend their client's term of custody to March 30 violated his rights.

    They asked the court to release Lebedev on bail because of his poor health.

    But prosecutors said Lebedev could escape from investigators ifhe was released and that he could exert pressure on witnesses and staff members of commercial organizations who depended on him materially.

    Lebedev, also chairman of the Menatep bank group, was arrested on July 2 on charges of fraud, tax evasion and embezzling 283 million US dollars worth of state property in a 1994 privatizationdeal.

    The Moscow Basmanny district court backed Russian prosecutors appeal on Dec. 26 to keep him in detention for another three months until March 30, 2004.

    The arrest and detention of Lebedev is seen as the beginning ofthe judicial investigation into Yukos which was followed by the arrest of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the subsequent sequestration of some 40 percent of Yukos shares owned by the oil tycoon and his allies.

    Critics say the detention of Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man,and the legal assault on Yukos are politically-motivated to punishthe oil oligarch who sponsored political opponents to President Vladimir Putin. Enditem