Reports appeared in the media Wednesday that the Prosecutor's General Office had fired Dmitry Shokhin, who worked on the case against Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Kamil Kashayev, who prosecuted former Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin.
But spokesperson Marina Gridneva rejected the claims, saying, "Reports that prosecutors Shokhin and Kashayev have been dismissed have nothing to do with reality."
Khodorkovsky was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2005 for embezzlement and other crimes, and Pichugin was given 24 years in prison for carrying out two murders and organizing another attempted killing.
Gridneva said Shokhin was at work and Kashayev was on vacation. "All prosecutors' offices in Moscow and the regions are undergoing reorganization, and it is surprising why a regular personnel rearrangement could have caused such rumors," she said.
She added that the prosecutor general had signed the order several days ago.
Kashayev said earlier Wednesday, "The Prosecutor's General Office is undergoing reorganization, and my post has been scrapped," He added that the order signed on August 29 also had fired Shokhin. He said they were yet to be offered any other post.
Russia's former top prosecutor, Vladimir Ustinov, stepped down in June to be replaced by the then justice minister, Yury Chaika. He set about instituting personnel changes, as Ustinov took over his former brief at the Justice Ministry.
President Vladimir Putin granted Shokhin, who was also the state prosecutor in the unsuccessful trial of three suspects in the murder case of Forbes Russian editor Paul Klebnikov, an honorary award for merits in ensuring law and order in December 2004.
Kashayev was a prosecutor in the case against Pavel Zaitsev, an investigator who received a two-year suspended sentence for his part in a protracted case that centered on furniture smuggling and eventually saw 19 high-ranking government officials discharged.
