Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former owner of OAO Yukos Oil Co., declared a hunger strike to protest the treatment of a former Yukos executive who is dying of AIDS in a Moscow prison.

Khodorkovsky said today that he is refusing food ``as a sign of solidarity'' with Vasily Aleksanian, according to a statement on his Web site.

Aleksanian, a former Yukos vice president, has accused Russian authorities of offering to release him for AIDS treatment only if he testifies against Khodorkovsky, who is facing new charges.

In an open letter to Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, Khodorkovsky said he faced a moral dilemma: whether to admit to false charges to ``save a person's life,'' or to become the possible cause of Aleksanian's death. Instead, he decided to stage a hunger strike.

``A man is being murdered by the Russian procuracy for refusing to give false testimony,'' Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky, said in a telephone interview from Toronto.

The Prosecutor General's Office referred all inquiries to a spokeswoman, who did not respond to calls for comment.

Demand for Treatment

The European Court of Human Rights has demanded repeatedly that Russia transfer Aleksanian to a specialized clinic outside the prison. The 36-year-old was diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a few months after his detention in April 2006, and is close to death, his lawyers say.

Prison officials say he has refused antiretroviral drugs. His lawyer Yelena Lvova denied this claim in a phone interview yesterday.

Aleksanian, whose pre-trial hearing started today, was detained on charges of money laundering and embezzlement soon after joining Yukos in 2006 with the power to act as head of the company, which was in the process of being dismantled by the state over tax claims. Yukos was once Russia's biggest company by market value and its largest oil producer.

The head of Europe's main human rights body, Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davies, appealed to Russian authorities on Jan. 25 to comply with the Strasbourg-based human rights court's rulings on Aleksanian.

Russia's Supreme Court last week denied a motion by Aleksanian's defense team seeking his release from pre-trial detention in Moscow to get specialized treatment. He is nearly blind and caught tuberculosis in prison.

`Risk of Dying'

``Doctors familiar with Aleksanian's medical file have stated that he is at imminent risk of dying,'' the former Yukos acting president's defense team said in an e-mailed statement.

Aleksanian's lawyer, Lvova, said he was taken away by ambulance for urgent treatment today from a Moscow court during his pre-trial hearing, the Interfax news service reported.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man whose fortune was estimated at $15 billion by Forbes magazine, is serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion in a Siberian penal colony. Currently in a pre-trial detention center in the Siberian city of Chita, he could face an additional 22 1/2 years in jail on new money-laundering and embezzlement charges.

The 44-year-old was arrested at gunpoint when his private plane was stormed at a Siberian airport in October 2003.

Yukos, the foundation of his fortune, was declared bankrupt under the weight of more than $30 billion in back taxes, and most of its assets were sold last year to state-run OAO Rosneft. Khodorkovsky said it was retribution for funding political parties that opposed President Vladimir Putin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at Hmeyer4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 30, 2008 09:54 EST