Yukos founder guilty, say judges
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Judges in the trial of Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky said on Monday he had committed tax evasion and other serious offences.
Summing up their verdicts in the 11-month hearing, the judges said he had committed crimes relating to four out of seven charges which he faces.
But they have not yet handed down formal guilty verdicts on these charges against the founder of the Yukos oil company.
Judges adjourned the hearing, and are expected to continue reading the verdict on Tuesday.
Khodorkovsky has been held in prison since his arrest in 2003. Yukos, which has since been crushed under the weight of a $27.5 billion back-tax bill, has been the object of a lengthy campaign by prosecutors and tax authorities.
Company officials say the crackdown is the Kremlin's punishment for Khodorkovsky's politics.
Khodorkovsky, who has criticized President Vladimir Putin, funded opposition political parties and expressed a desire to run for office some day. Putin has said the case is part of a crackdown on corruption, and he denies political motivation.
Defense lawyers said the judges' summing up left no doubt that Khodorkovsky, on trial with business associate Platon Lebedev, would be formally pronounced guilty, Reuters reported.
"Naturally, if they (the judges) have already recognised a crime has been established on these charges then of course the verdict will be guilty ... There are still some charges they have not covered yet," said another defence lawyer, Yuri Shmidt.
Commentators said they expected Khodorkovsky to be found guilty on at least some of the seven counts he faces but, whatever the judge decides, prosecutors have vowed to bring new charges to keep the 41-year-old billionaire behind bars. (Full story)
The prosecution is seeking the maximum 10-year prison term for Khodorkovsky, while his defense wants him fully acquitted.
Khodorkovsky, and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev -- a Yukos minority shareholder facing almost identical charges -- were driven to the court in an armored mini-van with tinted windows and escorted in handcuffs into the courtroom by armed guards.
The two had been listening to their fate from the metal cage in the courtroom where they have watched the trial since it started last June.
Khodorkovsky has branded the trial a farce. It is widely seen as part of a Kremlin campaign to destroy him and take back the company he built in murky privatization deals of the 1990s.
The Kremlin, which suspects Khodorkovsky of having dangerous political ambitions, has denied any role in his downfall. But Putin's chief of staff Dmitry Medvedev has described the trial as "showcase" for other business leaders.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last month in Moscow that Washington was watching the trial closely for signs of what it showed about the rule of law in Putin's Russia.
