MOSCOW, Oct. 22 -- Russian prosecutors on Friday demanded that jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky be kept in prison for 14 more years if he is convicted in his politically charged second trial, but then said they wanted it to include an eight-year sentence that Khodorkovsky is serving and which is due to end in October 2011.
Khodorkovsky is already serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and is standing trial on new charges of fraud and embezzling some $27 billion in crude oil.
The court is expected to take weeks to deliver a verdict.
In filing for 14 years, prosecutors requested the court take into account time already served. There was confusion among defense lawyers as to whether that meant since 2003, when he was first arrested, or since February 2007, when he the new charges were filed.
Asked by an AP reporter about the prosecution’s demands, Khodorkovksy said wryly: "It’s fine," with a shrug.
After the hearing, he was frogmarched out of the courtroom in handcuffs, as he smiled to supporters.
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, who is also on trial, have rejected the charges as fabricated and politically driven.
The criminal cases and the bankruptcy of Khodorkovsky’s Yukos oil company, once Russia’s largest, are seen as Kremlin’s punishment for the former oil tycoon’s political ambitions.
