A state prosecutor said at a court hearing on Monday he considered defense arguments presented by the two former Yukos executives and their lawyers "obvious lies".
Ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev said last week that investigators involved in bringing new charges against them had fabricated the evidence.
"We do not deem it necessary to dwell on arguments put forward by the accused and their defense because everything they said are obvious lies, and we believe that the court will find it to be so during the deliberations," Valery Lakhtin said at a court session at the Khamovniki district court in Moscow.
Prosecutors have recently demanded a 14-year sentence for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev on charges of stealing 218 million tons of oil from a Yukos subsidiary between 1998 and 2003. The prosecution initially said 350 million tons were stolen but reduced the figure late in the trial.
A verdict in the new case is expected soon, as the two are already serving eight years for fraud and tax evasion. If found guilty on the new charges, both men would serve an additional six years, according to Russian laws.
The Yukos case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev has long become a focus of public attention in Russia and the West. Many believe that the case is politically motivated, although Russian officials have consistently denied this claim.
MOSCOW, November 1 (RIA Novosti)
