Prosecutors start summing up in Khodorkovsky trial

MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors began winding up their case against oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Monday, summing up tax evasion and fraud charges.

The trial has run in parallel with the demise of YUKOS, the company Khodorkovsky founded and led and which is now on the brink of bankruptcy, crippled by a $27.5 billion back-tax claim and stripped of its biggest oil-producing asset.

YUKOS says the twin legal assault was orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish Khodorkovsky for his overt political ambitions. It also stunned investors who had come to regard YUKOS as one of Russia's most promising blue-chip stocks.

Khodorkovsky, whom Forbes magazine once credited with a $15 ($21.13) billion fortune and the title of Russia's richest man, was arrested at gun-point 18 months ago, snatched from his jet in Siberia, and could face 10 years in a labour camp if convicted.

Both he and his co-accused, YUKOS minority shareholder Platon Lebedev, have repeatedly rejected the charges, which relate to the 1994 privatisation of a fertiliser firm, Apatit, saying the case is rigged and they expect to be found guilty.

The court heard the cases against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, but did not have time to finish that against a third defendant, Andrei Krainov, the former head of a firm which the prosecution says was instrumental in the Apatit deal.

The hearing was due to continue on Tuesday local time.

Many other YUKOS shareholders and managers have fled the country for exile in the United States, Israel and Britain.

Even if the court acquits Khodorkovsky, prosecutors open a money laundering case against him in December, a charge which carries another potential 10-year sentence.

- REUTERS