Khodorkovsky, the founder of the now-bankrupt Yukos oil company, and his former business partner Platon Lebedev have been serving eight-year sentences in Siberia since 2005 for fraud and tax evasion.
Khodorkovsky challenged the team of prosecutors and investigators Wednesday on the basis of their "explicit dependence on the Kremlin," a popular Russian daily reported Thursday.
"Today, Khodorkovsky has been served with a ruling that rejects his petition to dismiss the investigative team working on his case. It was signed by Assistant Prosecutor General V. V. Ignashin," lawyers for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev said in a statement.
The Prosecutor General's Office could bring new charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky after the New Year holidays, a lawyer for the jailed oil tycoon said Thursday.
Yury Shmidt said the businessmen were questioned Wednesday on suspicion of embezzling receipts of Yukos subsidiaries Fargoil and Ratibor, and laundering the money through the Open Russia Foundation, a charitable organization established by Khodorkovsky in 2001 as a private endowment to assist academic institutions and non-governmental organizations in Russia.
"Asked to give evidence as a suspect, he [Khodorkovsky] said he 'does not want to be part of a political farce and does not believe in justice in Russia today,'" Kommerstant said, quoting the lawyer.
The former tycoon - who acquired his company during controversial privatization deals in the early 1990s - has insisted his case was orchestrated by the authorities to silence his criticism of President Vladimir Putin and as part of a campaign to bring mineral assets under Kremlin control.
Shmidt also told the newspaper the new case was "a logical continuation of selective justice aimed at bringing moral and physical pressure to bear on Mikhail Khodorkovsky."
