Jailed ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky "lied" to the shareholders of his oil firm Yukos, a judge said on Wednesday, two days after a Moscow court found him guilty of embezzlement in a politically tinged trial.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and seen as a political threat to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and his business partner Platon Lebedev pegged oil prices and "told lies" to Yukos shareholders about the proceeds, Judge Viktor Danilkin said.
Khodorkovsky, 47, and Lebedev, 54, embezzled 218 million tons of oil from Yukos and laundered over 3 billion rubles ($97.5 million) in revenues, Danilkin said on Monday.
The two men have already spent seven years in jail for fraud and tax evasion from their 2005 trial.
The term of the new sentence is expected in a few days' time, when Danilkin finishes reading the full 250-page verdict.
Russia has accused the West of exerting "unacceptable pressure" over the verdict, telling the United States and Europe to "mind their own business."
The United States, Germany and Britain were among those who expressed serious concern over Khodorkovsky's conviction.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the trial raised "serious questions about selective prosecution and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations."
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said it was a "step backward on the road toward a modernization of the country."
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said she "expects Russia to respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law."
Khodorkovsky's lawyers and human rights activists say the court was under pressure following a remark by Putin earlier this month that "a thief belongs in jail." Russia's man of deeds later claimed he was referring only to Khodorkovsky's first conviction.
The trial is widely viewed as a political vendetta by Putin, whom Khodorkovsky challenged by funding the liberal opposition in the early 2000s.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have always maintained that charges against them are trumped up.
MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti)
