Khodorkovsky calls Putin to take stand

Lawyers for jailed Russian oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky plan to call Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a witness in the former tycoon's embezzlement trial.

Khodorkovsky, a Kremlin critic who is serving an eight-year jail sentence for fraud and tax evasion, appeared in court yesterday for the first day of a new trial that could keep him in prison for a further 22 years.

The hearing poses a delicate political dilemma for President Dmitry Medvedev, who has promised to end widespread abuse of Russian law - so-called legal "nihilism".

A conviction could undermine that pledge, while an acquittal would free Khodorkovsky from jail before the next presidential election in 2012.

Dressed in jeans and a black jacket, Khodorkovsky smiled as he entered the court hearing, which was attended by his parents and prominent Moscow rights activists.

"I consider the case to be aberrant from a logical point of view," Khodorkovsky told the court in his first comments of the trial.

Earlier pre-trial hearings were closed to the public.

Prosecutors at Moscow's Khamovnichesky district court say Khodorkovsky helped embezzle 900 billion roubles ($25.39 billion) from subsidiaries of Yukos, the oil company he founded, and laundered 500 billion roubles of that total.

Supporters of Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, have blamed Putin's government for orchestrating the tycoon's first trial in 2005 for fraud and tax evasion, saying it was part of a campaign to clip the wings of powerful tycoons.

Putin has denied any role in the case and the government has consistently said Khodorkovsky was a criminal who was tried and sentenced according to the law.

Lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant said Putin would be asked about conversations he allegedly held with Khodorkovsky before the original trial.

"We want to find out whether they discussed illegal activities by Yukos," Klyuvgant told Reuters.

The judge said the request would be considered later in the trial.

In pre-trial hearings, defence lawyers argued that Khodorkovsky and his co-accused, business partner Platon Lebedev, were political prisoners, that the new charges were absurd and that they should be rejected.