A group of Russian journalists covering the trial of the country's former richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, alleged on Wednesday that court security personnel have attempted to prevent them from working.
A letter signed by representatives of leading Russian media, including RIA Novosti, Ekho Moskvy and ITAR-TASS complained to the head of the Federal Bailiff Service that security staff at Moscow's Khamovniki Court have ignored laws on media rights and followed "their own severe rules."
Journalists said that security guards had hampered their access to the court, shouted at them during live TV reports to "quit chatting away, immediately" and had behaved in a rude and unprofessional manner.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and at one time seen as a potential political threat to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was found guilty of embezzlement in a second trial on Monday.
Judge Viktor Danilkin said Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner Platon Lebedev, 54, embezzled 218 million tonnes of oil from their former oil firm Yukos and laundered over 3 billion rubles ($97.5 million) in revenues.
The two men have already spent seven years in jail for fraud and tax evasion from their first trial.
The length of the new sentence is expected in a few days' time, when Danilkin finishes reading the full 250-page verdict.
MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti)
