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Court to start considering Khodorkovsky's parole application

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A regional court is to start considering the parole application of jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky after it received Friday documents detailing his prison record, a court spokesman said.
MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - A regional court is to start considering the parole application of jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky after it received Friday documents detailing his prison record, a court spokesman said.

Khodorkovsky's lawyers filed an appeal on July 16 requesting the former oligarch's early release.

"Mikhail Khodorkovsky's prison record was delivered to the court's secretariat on August 1. All the papers have been submitted to Judge Igor Faleyev," the spokesman said.

The date of the first hearing to consider the parole will be announced later.

Russian prosecutors filed new charges of money laundering and oil theft against Khodorkovsky, who headed what was once the country's largest oil company, and his business partner Platon Lebedev in early July. Both men are serving eight-year jail terms for fraud and tax evasion.

In December 2006, Lebedev, 41, and Khodorkovsky, 45, were transferred from a prison to a pre-trial detention center pending a further investigation into allegations that between 1998 and 2004 they were involved in the theft of 350 million metric tons of oil and the laundering of $28.3 billion.

Pre-trial custody for both men, which was due to end on August 2, has been extended until November 2, 2008.

Both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have maintained their innocence throughout, with Khodorkovsky claiming his conviction was political, in retaliation for his support of Russia's opposition movement.

Meanwhile, the court in Chita has partially upheld the lawyers' complaint about the lack of action by investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office. Reports say they have been faulted for failing to provide proper documentation of the evidence against Khodorkovsky.

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