RUSSIA: Judges in Moscow have ruled that Russia's most high-profile defendant, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had committed crimes under all seven charges facing him, but they have delayed a final verdict until today at the earliest.
With hundreds of protesters for and against Khodorkovsky jostling with lines of police outside Moscow's Meschansky courthouse yesterday, the judges spent a second day reading their detailed verdict.
Khodorkovsky is accused of theft, fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement in a complicated series of charges. He is almost certain to be found guilty when the verdict is complete and he faces up to 10 years hard labour. "The court has established guilt on all charges," said one of his lawyers, Genrikh Padva, outside the court.
His lawyers insist he is innocent and have vowed to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Meanwhile federal prosecutors are preparing fresh charges against Khodorkovsky, whom supporters say is being victimised by President Vladimir Putin in a political trial.
Outside the court, demonstrators in red T-shirts kept up noisy chants in favour of the oil tycoon who was once Russia's richest man with a $15 billion (€11.8 billion) fortune.
"He is innocent," said Alex Bestaer, on the pavement across the road from the court entrance.
He said other tycoons, such as Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, avoided attack by the government because they stayed out of politics and paid high taxes.
"The Kremlin are against him because he does not give them money. If Abramovich gives money to the Kremlin, that makes him the right tycoon, and if Khodorkovsky does not give money to the Kremlin, that makes him the wrong kind," he said.
The case has become a cause celebre for opposition politicians and activists worried about the growing centralisation of power by Mr Putin.
After a Spartan presence in previous days, more than 100 soldiers and police were deployed at the courthouse yesterday, pushing back a group of about 40 Khodorkovsky supporters who had surged through a barrier towards the courthouse door.
Others came to protest against the man who is vilified by many ordinary Russians for making billions while they struggle to get by. One man, who would not give his name, wore a yellow placard around his chest calling for Khodorkovsky to pay compensation for workers laid off in a company acquisition in Siberia.
"He should have earned his money in an honest way," the man, a former forestry worker said, "not by taking someone else's job."
The case, which Khodorkovsky says is revenge by the Kremlin after he dabbled in opposition politics, has worried the international business community.
While Khodorkovsky and co- defendant Platon Lebedev have been on trial, the production arm of their company, Yukos, was sold by the state to the main state oil company, Rosneft.
Further jitters spread among Moscow financiers yesterday when the government slapped an unexpected $131 million back tax demand on electricity monopoly UES. Executives are seeking clarification of the demand, which follows last month's unexpected billion dollar back tax demand made to BP, Russia's largest foreign investor.
The case has been criticised by the United States.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "The conduct of the Khodorkovsky-Yukos affair has eroded Russia's reputation and sapped confidence in Russian legal and judicial institutions."