Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is appealing against his sentence of six more years in prison, a punishment seen as revenge for challenging ex-president Vladimir Putin?s power.
Moscow judge Viktor Danilkin yesterday granted the prosecutors? request to extend Mr Khodorkovsky's sentence and ordered him to serve 14 years in prison, including his current eight-year term and counting from the day of his arrest in Siberia in October 2003.
His lawyer Karinna Moskalenko submitted the appeal today on the final work day before a 10-day New Year holiday.
She said her client?s conviction on charges of stealing almost €23 billion worth of oil between 1998 and 2003 from his Yukos company and laundering the proceeds had nothing to do with justice.
Mr Khodorkovsky?s business partner Platon Lebedev received the same sentence. His lawyer also appealed.
The ruling drew strong condemnation from western governments, who called it evidence of the use of Russia?s judicial system for political ends.
One of the young tycoons who built fortunes after the Soviet Union?s 1991 collapse, Mr Khodorkovsky fell out with Mr Putin?s Kremlin after airing corruption allegations, challenging state control over oil exports and funding opposition parties.
AP