Moscow's Khamovniki Court will on Thursday continue reading the verdict in the trial of jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev.
Presiding Judge Viktor Danilkin is expected to conclude the announcement of the section of the verdict that lists evidence supporting the charges of illegal appropriation of property.
The reading of the 250-page verdict began on December 27, and Khodorkovsky's lawyers expect it to last until December 31, when the sentence will be announced.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, who have already spent seven years behind bars for tax evasion, are facing new charges of embezzling 218 tons of oil from Khodorkovsky's former oil firm Yukos and laundering over 3 billion rubles ($97.5 million) in revenues. The two men may spent up to another seven years in jail, if found guilty on all charges.
The trial is widely viewed by analysts as a political vendetta by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whom Khodorkovsky challenged by funding the liberal opposition in the early 2000s.
The United States, Germany and Britain have already condemned the new verdict, with the White House calling it a "selective application of the law."
MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti)
