Khodorkovsky’s supporters see him as a martyr punished for daring to challenge former president Vladimir Putin by financing opposition parties but Russian officials view him as a corrupt tycoon who profited by breaking the law.

A Russian court found on Monday ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, along with his business partner Platon Lebedev, guilty of embezzlement and money laundering charges in his second corruption trial.


They had been charged with embezzling 218 million tones of oil from Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil giant between 1998 and 2003 -- a charge the defense team says is absurd.
They were also charged with laundering 487 billion rubles (16 billion dollars) and 7.5 billion dollars received from the embezzled oil. The defense will appeal the verdict, his lead lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant told news agencies.


"The court has established that M. Khodorkovsky and P. Lebedev committed embezzlement acting in collusion with a group of people and using their professional positions," said judge Viktor Danilkin in the judgment.
The judge was still reading the details of the verdict at midday and it was not clear when the sentence would be delivered.


Khodorkovsky is already serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion in a case his supporters say is politically motivated, as he sponsored the political rivals of Vladimir Putin, Russia's former president and current prime minister.
But with his release scheduled for next year, Russia’s richest man was put on trial last year on charges of money laundering and embezzlement that could see the head of the now-defunct Yukos oil giant stay in jail until 2017.


Khodorkovsky's supporters see him as a martyr punished for daring to challenge former president Vladimir Putin by financing opposition parties but Russian officials view him as a corrupt tycoon who profited by breaking the law.
The hundreds of supporters gathered outside the court shouted "Russia without Putin" and "Down with the police state". Police arrested around 20 people, Interfax said.


But an advisor to Medvedev's flagship modernization project Monday had made an impassioned plea for an acquittal, saying it was an essential message for foreign investment and to show change is possible.
"Such a verdict would satisfy business, the West in the widest sense of the word and potential investors in Russia," said Igor Yurgens, head of The Institute of Contemporary Development think tank set up by Medvedev when he came to power in 2008.