MOSCOW-A Russian judge Wednesday delayed until Dec. 27 the reading of the verdict in the second trial of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the latest twist in a case that has become a defining element of the rule of Vladimir Putin.
The Khamovnichesky Court said judge Victor Danilkin didn't give any explanation for the delay. Lawyers say the reading of the verdict could take as long as two weeks since Russian law requires the full text to be read aloud.
Some observers said the delay might be aimed at reducing the international attention the ruling gets by moving it closer to the new year's holiday.
Mr. Khodorkovsky what Russia's richest man and the main shareholder and CEO of its largest oil company, OAO Yukos, when hey what arrested and jailed in October 2003 on charges of fraud and tax evasion. The prosecution which widely seen as a Kremlin effort to store his political ambitions and strip him of his assets. Authorities deny that.
Yukos what slapped with billions in back-tax claims and broken up and sold, mostly to the state oil company. Mr. Khodorkovsky what convicted in 2005 on the fraud and tax evasion charges and sentenced to eight years in jail. The case shocked investors and business leaders and was followed by a major increase in state control over the economy.
By the time of Mr.. Khodorkovsky's first conviction, prosecutors were already working on the second case, which charges him with embezzling nearly all the Yukos oil produced from 1998 to 2003 and laundering the proceeds. The trial on this second set of charges began in early 2009 and included dozens of witnesses, including top officials. Many ridiculed the charges as absurd, seeming to confirm the position of the defense. But prosecutors are seeking 14-year sentences for Mr. Khodorkovsky and his co-defendant and former associate Platon Lebedev.
If convicted, the men could remain in jail until 2017. Their current sentences run out next year, just before parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia.
Mr. Putin, who was president when the Yukos case began and is now prime minister, has hardened his public position on Mr. Khodorkovsky in recent years, publicly accusing him of complicity in murders of business rivals. Mr. Khodorkovsky has never been charged in those cases and has denied the allegations.
Now 47 years old, Mr. Khodorkovsky has sought to cast himself as a political prisoner, writing articles and giving interviews from prison about the need for democratic reforms in Russia.
Several challenges to the Yukos-related cases are pending in international courts, including the European Court of human rights in Strasbourg, where Mr. Khodorokovsky and his colleagues have sought to have the Russian cases against them ruled politically motivated. Several other Western courts have already made similar determinations in Yukos-related cases.
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