Russian Former Oil Tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky Found Guilty of Corruption Charges
The reading on Monday of the verdict in Khodorkovsky’s second trial for corruption gathered hundreds of supporters in Moscow, and determined the presence of a heavy police complement in front of the court building.
The supporters were facing a 50 C below temeprature and were chanting “Freedom,” and “Russia without Putin,” while there banners were saying that “The country sleeps, Khodorkovsky sits [in jail].”
Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev were found guilty as charged.
Khodorkovsky is seen as the figure of opposition to Putin’s policies in Russia as he ran for the presidential office in the past and financed the campaigns of the opposition leaders.
He sees himself as a victim of the “totalitarian regime” and considers his imprisonment as a political vendetta and a way of being stripped off the companies he created after the privatizations in the 1990s.
Kremlin has systematically denied any role in the things Khodorkovsky accuses it of.
The reading of the verdict had originally been scheduled for December 15, but it was postponed without explanation 
by simply placing a note on the courthouse door hours before the session was supposed to begin.
Khodorkovsky is the former owner of Yukos, once the largest oil company in Russia, which was broken into many companies who were absorbed by the state soon after the owner went to jail, where he is serving an eight years sentence for tax evasion and fraud.
The second trial, whose verdict has been passed today, began in March 2009, and had as charges against Khodorkovsky and his business associate Platon Lebedev embezzlement and laundering of stolen property.
Namely, they are being accused of having stolen billions of dollars’ worth from Yukos production subsidiaries.
In October, prosecutors asked for 14 years in jail for the two former oil magnates, including the time Khodorkovsky has been serving which means that he will stay in jail until 2017.
The court ordered Lebedev and Khodorkovsky to pay $600 million in back taxes.
