Final Khodorkovsky judgment due

12-29-2010 08:37 BJT

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Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's defense lawyers say the judge hearing his case will deliver his final judgment before the end of the year.

Earlier, Russia's Foreign Ministry hit back at claims by western powers about the fairness of his trial and conviction.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev have spent a second day in a Moscow court as the judge continued reading the verdict.

It is a lengthy summary of the 20-month trial, which, in Khodorkovsky's lawyer's words, could keep him behind bars for several more years.

Vladimir Krasnov, Platon Lebedev's Lawyer, said, "What was pronounced were several pages of the long verdict referring to 1998, and now, as I understand, they are reading the pages for 1999; and so they will read the years 2000 and the following three years. And they informed us of their intention to finish pronouncing the verdict before the end of this year."

That case was seen by some as a punishment for challenging the Kremlin's economic and political power, in part by funding parliamentary opposition parties.

The two former oil tycoons were found guilty by Moscow court on charges of large-scale theft by an organized group and attempts to legalize stolen property. Their lawyers say they will appeal the guilty verdict.

Khodorkovsky is nearing the end of an eight-year sentence after being convicted of tax fraud in 2005. In 2009, when their first trial had nearly ended, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, were returned from Siberia's Chita region to Moscow to face a second trial of embezzlement.

The second verdict has drawn criticism from European countries and the US as being politically motivated. The US says the case will have "a negative impact on Russia's reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations", adding that the United States will monitor the appeal process.

But the Russian foreign ministry says the case involves serious charges of tax evasion and money laundering, crimes which are punishable in any country. It criticized the attempts of several western countries to exert pressure on the cases, saying the action is "unacceptable".