A MOSCOW court today found Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of stealing billions of dollars of oil from his own company and laundering the proceeds in a second trial that many see as a barometer of Russia's authoritarian regime. Supporters of Russia's most famous political prisoner say the charges against him are absurd, designed to keep him in jail beyond the next presidential election, due in 2012.



Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyers say they expect him to be handed six more years in prison. The sentence will be delivered only after the judge finishes reading the full verdict, a lengthy process reminiscent of the Soviet era that may take several days.

Inside the packed central Moscow courtroom, Mr Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, who is also on trial, sat impassively in a glass cage as the judge read the verdict over noise from protesters outside. Around 1,500 Khodorkovsky supporters chanted "Freedom!" and "Shame!"; police dragged at least 20 of them away.

Mr Khodorkovsky's first, eight-year sentence, for fraud and tax evasion, followed his arrest in 2003. A former oil tycoon, now a symbol for Russia's embattled human-rights community, he is nonetheless still reviled by many Russians for his behaviour during the turbulent 1990s.

But Mr Khodorkovsky's real crime was to have posed a threat to Vladimir Putin, who became president in 2000, by acting as an independent property-owner rather than a servile manager of Russia's natural resources, and by funding opposition parties and using his influence to lobby against Mr Putin's aim of building an oil-fuelled authoritarian regime. His imprisonment, and the dismantling of Yukos, the oil company he ran, were essential for Mr Putin and the corrupt and violent system he was constructing.



Mr Khodorkovsky's second trial has plodded on with a heavy sense of inevitability for almost two years, during which the judge barred many witnesses for the defence and struck down most of his lawyers' objections.

The judge's decision had been expected earlier this month, but was postponed until today with no explanation, apparently to minimise publicity by timing the verdict to coincide with the new year, Russia's biggest and best-lubricated holiday.

Earlier this month, Putin shocked even veteran Russia-watchers by claiming that Mr Khodorkovsky's crimes had already been "proven in court." Evoking a line from a popular Soviet-era film during a live television phone-in programme, he announced, "A thief should be in jail." This prompted Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyers to accuse Mr Putin of openly interfering in the court proceedings.

Dmitry Medvedev, the man Mr Putin picked to be his successor as president, has frequently promised to clean up Russia's legal system. Today's verdict is further evidence that he has no real power; that his laudable-sounding words are merely part of the smoke and mirrors obscuring the real operations of the Russian state.

