Three ex-Mitsui Oil Asia staff charged in Singapore

SINGAPORE, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Three former employees of Mitsui & Co's (8031.T) now-shut Singapore oil trading arm were charged in Singapore on Tuesday, their lawyers said.

Mitsui & Co, Japan's second-biggest trading house, shut Mitsui Oil Asia (MOA) after the Singapore office raked up $81 million in naphtha trading-related losses as of Nov. 17, 2006.

Noriyuki Yamazaki, 37, former naphtha trader for MOA, was charged with falsification of documents, his lawyer Sant Singh of Tan Rajah & Cheah said.

Wada Takayoshi, 46, the former general manager for trading, was charged with abetting Yamazaki in a conspiracy to falsify documents, said Lee Teck Leng of Lee Associates Advocates & Solicitors.

Takahashi Masatsugu, 51, then executive vice president, faces 130 charges of falsifying accounting documents related to naphtha mark-to-market profit and loss figures, said Thong Chee Kun of Rajah & Tann.

Both Takayoshi and Masatsugu still work for Mitsui & Co, their lawyers said.

Yamazaki, who was hired as a senior broker with Singapore-based oil brokerage Ginga Petroleum in April this year, was arrested two days after Mitsui & Co reported the matter to Singapore's white-collar police on Feb. 12 last year, and was then released on bail.

The company said last February that the losses in trading of naphtha, a light oil product used as a petrochemical feedstock, had been "deceptively concealed" and said it had filed the results of its own investigation with Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).

The lawyers for the three that have been charged said they could not comment on the allegations because the matter was now before the court.

Under Singapore law they are not required to enter any form of plea at this stage.

The three will be back in court on Nov. 18. (Reporting by Chua Baizhen, Editing by Ramthan Hussain and Bill Tarrant)