RUSSIA: Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and other crimes by Moscow judges yesterday as the country's most controversial trial finally reached a verdict.
In a case widely seen as a trial of strength between Khodorkovsky and Russian president Vladimir Putin, judges at the Meschansky courthouse in northern Moscow said he had committed four of seven charges against him.
A formal guilty verdict is expected today in the second part of the verdict reading, with the oil tycoon, once Russia's richest man, facing up to 10 years in jail.
Mr Khodorkovsky, formerly chief of Russia's biggest oil company, Yukos, was arrested in 2003 and has been on trial accused of financial crimes.
But supporters say the charges are false and the trial was ordered by the Kremlin because the tycoon had begun backing parties opposed to the rule of Mr Putin.
"It's all part of campaign to discredit, to taint and ruin a reputation," Robert Amsterdam, head of Mr Khodorkovsky's legal team, told The Irish Times. "Let me say very clearly he's absolutely innocent. This is a political case. The rule of law is under attack."
Outside the court several hundred pro-Khodorkovsky protesters waved flags and banners in the bright sunshine and booed the judges and chanted slogans. Deputy leader of the opposition Yabloko party, Sergei Mitrohin, was manhandled away by police after refusing to move from the court entrance. "This is a personal fight between the two men, Mr Putin and Mr Khodorkovsky," said Yelizaveta Titanyan, a textile designer who came to the court from St Petersburg. "Grey, unnoticeable men envy bright and talented ones."
Among individual charges against the tycoon and co-defendant Platon Lebedev, a business associate, is one that "with the aim of malicious failure to obey a court order" the tycoon had redistributed shares in a fertilizer company.
The judges also said Mr Khodorkovsky "knowingly submitted false declarations" about his financial status.
A final view on the veracity of the charges may take some time. As with many fraud cases, many of the events in the case are not disputed, only whether they amounted to a breach of the law.
Defence lawyer Yuri Schmidt said the judges were "completely following the conclusions of the prosecution". He said he would appeal the verdict and may look outside Russia to "other courts and other jurisdictions" - a hint that the case may end up at the European Court of Human Rights.
Amnesty International has criticised the "political" nature of the trial, condemning judges for interfering in the client-lawyer relationship. And yesterday MEP Milan Horacek warned outside the court that he would urge the European Parliament to criticise Moscow formally.
"Khodorkovsky and Lebedev appear in court in a cage: it looks like the ones who are already guilty," he said. "There is no independent legal system here."
President Putin insisted in last month's state of the nation speech that he did not support the state "persecution" of business. Mr Khodorkovsky, born to a poor family, made his fortune through a controversial deal 10 years ago when the Russian government agreed to sell him Yukos, worth $9 billion, for just $350 million.
The deal infuriated many ordinary Russians, but was not illegal, and after the acquisition Mr Khodorkovsky gained a reputation for financial probity. His was the first major private firm to file accounts to western standards.
Then in 2003 he began using some of his $12 billion fortune to finance political parties opposed to Vladimir Putin ahead of parliamentary elections.
Simultaneously, he agreed to buy Russia's second-biggest oil company, Sibneft, owned by soccer tycoon Roman Abramovich, a deal that would have put him in control of a third of the national oil production.
Soon afterwards, the tycoon was arrested in a snowbound Siberian airfield in October 2003, and later in the year Sibneft pulled out of the deal.
Meanwhile, Yukos, which Mr Khodorkovsky resigned from, was hit with a $10 billion back-tax bill, and when it struggled to pay, was put up for auction. This auction, last December, caused controversy when the state valued the firm's production arm at $6 billion, about half the price given by most analysts, and then sold it to the State's own oil company.
While the Kremlin is likely to be relieved that one of its fiercest critics will now spend time behind bars, it may be unnerved by the growing numbers of demonstrators arriving outside the court.