Former Yukos chief Khodorkovsky denied bail on trial's first day

Former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky was denied bail as he stood trial in a case that toppled Russia's richest man from the heights of power and drove the nation's leading oil group to the brink of bankruptcy.

Khodorkovsky is standing trial with a top associate, Platon Lebedev, whose arrest last July heralded the start of the so-called Yukos affair, widely seen here as a political witchhunt.


The judge refused to release both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev on bail for the duration of the hearings.


"This was not a big surprise for us," Yury Shmidt, one of Khodorkovsky's lawyers, told reporters.


The first day of their joint trial, which is expected to last several months, lasted for more than nine hours at Moscow's Meshchansky court amid tight security.


The next court date has been set for June 23, Shmidt said.


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