"For the overwhelming majority, this sentence is a tragic example of how the powers-that-be exploit the law-enforcement and judicial systems in their political aims," the statement says.
Group Menatep said as much through its London-based subsidiary, the Yukos chief shareholder, that the trial of the Yukos staff is politically motivated and staged.
"Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his companion Platon Lebedev have been sentenced to nine years in prison each, which makes one recall the exhibition trials of the 1930s. The reading of the verdict was intentionally dragged out to distract the attention of the press," the statement says. "The trial has been internationally criticized for its political motivation."
The European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the U.S. Congress, the World Bank and various human rights organizations have all already weighed in on the decision. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a resolution last January condemning the case's political undertones.
Menatep said London's magistrate court in Bow Street refused to extradite two former Yukos staffers to Russia and referred to the Yukos case as political.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office denies any wrongdoing.
"We categorically reject any political motivation in this case," said spokeswoman Natalya Vishnyakova.
