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Khodorkovsky found guilty as protests mount against Putin and ‘charade’ trial

Extended term expected for jailed former oil tycoon as supporters cite Kremlin influence in political trial

The fate of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was left hanging in the balance today after a court in Moscow found him guilty of theft and money laundering in a politically tinged trial that is seen as a weathervane for Russia’s future course.

Viktor Danilkin, the trial judge, told the packed court that Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, 54, “carried out the embezzlement of property entrusted to the defendants”.

But the trial remains delicately poised because Danilkin will not sentence until he finishes reading his full 250-page verdict, which could take several days.

Opposing factions in the Kremlin are said to be in dispute over how much longer the businessman, who has already spend seven years in jail on earlier fraud charges, should stay behind bars.

Khodorkovsky, wearing a scuffed black jacket, and Lebedev, in a white tracksuit top, whispered to each other inside the enclosed dock and ignored the judge as he said the court had established their guilt.

Hundreds of protesters outside the court in the Khamovniki district of southern Moscow shouted “freedom” and “Russia without Putin”. Police arrested about 20 people, dragging them out of the crowd and crushing their placards.

Speaking during a recess, Khodorkovsky’s lead lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, said: “The trial was a charade of justice, the charges were absolutely false, but I fear the sentencing will be very real.”

Yury Shmidt, another lawyer, said Danilkin was “not talking, but droning” through his verdict.

Supporters of Khodorkovsky, who part-owned the Yukos oil company and was once Russia’s richest man, say the Kremlin controls the court system and singled him out for punishment because he funded opposition politicians.

The oligarch has been in prison since he was seized by special forces as his plane landed to refuel on a Siberian runway in 2003. A court sentenced him and Lebedev to eight years in prison two years later, but a trial on fresh charges of embezzling $25bn (£16bn) of oil began last year.

Analysts say the length of the sentence, which is expected this week or in early January, will show which of two Kremlin clans – the siloviki (security and military veterans) associated with Vladimir Putin, the prime minister , and the liberals grouped mainly around the president, Dmitry Medvedev – has gained supremacy in the country.

Prosecutors want the men to stay in prison until 2017, and Putin said this month that “a thief should be in jail” when he was asked about the trial. Medvedev, however, has distanced himself from the case and said on Friday that “neither the president nor any other official in public service have the right to express their stance on this before the verdict is delivered.”

The friction over Khodorkovsky channels into a wider debate over which man from Russia’s “ruling tandem” will stand for the presidency in 2012. US diplomats believe Medvedev is “Robin to Putin’s Batman” and Putin will try to get back the post he held from 2000 to 2008, according to documents disclosed by WikiLeaks earlier this month. But Medvedev has given muted signals that he’d like to stay in the job.

Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to Putin, told the Guardian outside the court that the liberal camp was unlikely to prevail.

“This prosecution is the result of a coup,” he said. “In 2003, the siloviki became afraid that Khodorkovsky and the political forces surrounding him were becoming too powerful, so they decided to arrest him. These people are still dominant in the country and for them it would be a defeat if Khodorkovsky was released.”

Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former MP and opposition politician who was also outside the court, said: “There has been open pressure on the judge from Putin who consistently expresses his hatred for Khodorkovsky and says publicly that he is guilty of theft.”

Ryzhkov added: “I believe they want to keep him in prison for another three or four years at least, so he is not released until well after the next presidential elections, in 2012.” He dismissed suggestions that Medvedev might ensure a softer sentence. “There is never any action behind Medvedev’s rhetoric,” he said.

One protester among the crowd opposite the court was Vladimir Yurovsky, 54, the manager of a small Moscow financial services company.

“I’ve seen the indictments and they are absurd,” he said, adding. “I once worked for a company that competed with Khodorkovsky’s business and he took away our clients. But it was done in a gentlemanly way that only demanded respect.”

The decision comes as leaked US embassy cables reveal that US diplomats believe attempts by the Russian government to demonstrate due process in the trial are “lipstick on a political pig” .

Despite the protests, many Russians are indifferent to Khodorkovsy’s fate, believing that oligarchs who grew rich in the turbulent 1990s should also be prosecuted.

“Given such significant international implications to the case, and given Khodorkovsky’s former stature, one might expect a large amount of focus on the Yukos case inside Russia,” noted a US diplomat in Moscow last year, according to the WikiLeaks documents . “However, most Russians continue to pay scant attention.”

The trial resumes tomorrow.

Profile

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was one of the most successful of the first wave of Russian oligarchs, politically connected businessmen who made good in the chaotic decade after the Soviet collapse in 1991. Born in Moscow in 1963, he was active as a student in the Communist youth movement, using his ties to devise a scheme to turn government subsidies into hard cash. He also sold imported computers.

In 1988, he set up Menatep, a commercial bank he later used to acquire control of the Yukos oil company. Yukos developed rapidly after major investment and Khodorkovsky turned it into a western-style quoted company. But he fell out of favour with Vladimir Putin, then president, when he began complaining about corruption, promoting private oil pipelines and funding opposition politicians. He was arrested in 2003 and later sentenced to eight years in prison for fraud.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky Vladimir Putin Russia Tom Parfitt

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