Khodorkovsky stands trial as Yukos teeters on bankruptcy

Former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky stood trial in a case that has toppled Russia's richest man from the heights of corporate power and driven 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 first day of their trial, which is expected to last several months, began at a court in central Moscow after Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were brought from the notorious Matrosskaya Tishina prison amid tight security.


They are charged with seven counts of fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement and are accused of defrauding the state of more than one billion dollars (825 million euros).


Both have denied any wrongdoing, but face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.


Attorneys said Wednesday's session was likely to be largely technical in nature and decried the conditions of what was supposed to be open proceedings.


"An open proceeding has not been provided," Karina Moskalenko, one of the defendants' 10 attorneys, told the judge.


The courtroom had places for 30 spectators and only 10 reporters were allowed inside to observe the trial that has attracted international media attention for months.


Khodorkovsky and Lebedev sat in a courtroom cage, as is the custom in Russia's Soviet-era judicial system, and joked between themselves during a break in the proceedings.


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