The family of ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was morally prepared to hear a harsh prison sentence delivered to him by a Russian court on Thursday, his eldest son said.
The Khamovniki district court in Moscow sentenced Khodorkovski and his business partner to a total of 14 years in prison in the second trial involving Yukos assets. With time already served counting towards this total, both men could remain behind bars until 2017.
"Morally, my farther and the whole family, including my grandfather and grandmother, were ready to hear this verdict," Pavel Khodorkovsky told RIA Novosti on Thursday. "My dad did not expect any other outcome because the trial was so predictable."
Pavel Khodorkovsky, 25, has been residing in the United States in self-imposed exile since 2003. He works in a media company in New York, and has a wife and a one-year-old daughter.
Pavel said that despite the trial was obviously "phony" and the verdict was composed of quotes taken from prosecutor's statements, "there was no crying in our family."
"I simply asked his lawyer to tell him [father] that we are waiting for him," Pavel said.
The second trial against Khodorkovsky is widely seen as a political attack by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin against one of his political rivals, who financed opposition parties and pursued his own oil export plans.
The United States and the European Union have condemned the verdict as harsh and unfair, and expressed concern over the fact that the judicial system in Russia has shown no signs of improvement despite President Dmitry Medvedev's pledge to make it just and transparent.
NEW YORK, December 31 (RIA Novosti)
