The former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev will not seek a pardon after being sentenced to a total 14-year jail term, Khodorkovsky's lawyer Vadim Kluvgant said on Thursday.
The two men, who have already spent seven years in jail for fraud and tax evasion from their 2005 trial, could face up to six more years in prison after the court found them guilty of embezzling 218 million tons of oil from Khodorkovsky's former oil firm Yukos and laundering over 3 billion rubles ($97.5 million) in revenues.
After the trial Klyuvgant said the convicted businessmen were not going to plead for a pardon.
Another of Khodorkovsky's defense team, Yury Shmidt said they were planning to appeal since "the verdict is illegal, unjustified, not based on the real evidence and was made under pressure."
"The pressure was coming from the executive," Shmidt said.
"Long live our humane, independent court!" Khodorkovsky himself said in his Twitter account after the trial.
Last week Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, responding to a question about the trial, said neither the president nor any other official had the right to express their opinion on a case before the court announces its verdict.
When asked about Khodorkovsky during the annual televised Q&A session on December 16, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that thieves should be imprisoned. He said his answer could not been regarded as pressure on the court during the current trial, as he was referring to the sentence already passed on Khodorkovsky.
MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti)
