Russia Tycoon`s Lawyers Want Change Of Trial Judge

Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who fell foul of the Kremlin under former President Vladimir Putin, is attending preliminary hearings.

Defence lawyers for fallen Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Wednesday failed to secure the dismissal of the presiding judge at his trial on new charges of embezzling more than $25 billion.

Khodorkovsky, who fell foul of the Kremlin under former President Vladimir Putin, is attending preliminary hearings at a new trial that could add 22 years to his current eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.

The fate of Khodorkovsky, whose arrest in 2003 by armed FSB security agents sent shockwaves through the Russian business elite, is being watched for any signs of leniency under Putin's successor Dmitry Medvedev.

Defence lawyers said the presiding judge at the Khamovnichesky court, Viktor Danilkin, refused to dismiss himself after they requested he step down, arguing he had not let them table motions on the court's jurisdiction.

The lawyers said the move to dismiss the judge was a "last resort" after he had dismissed several of their motions on Tuesday, including demands to change the state prosecutor and remove Khodorkovsky from a glass walled cage in the courtroom.

Reporters were not allowed inside the courtroom where Khodorkovsky, 45, sat in a cage of bullet-proof glass. He smiled and nodded to waiting reporters when he was led out of the hearing in handcuffs by a guard.

"The request by the defence to remove the judge was rejected and the court proceeded to... the prosecutors' request to leave in place the measures to detain (the defendants)," said Yelena Liptser, one of Khodorkovsky's lawyers.

"We believe the outcome of this case was decided in advance and the choice of jurisdiction and judge was made on this basis," she told reporters outside the courtroom. "He (the judge) will not be objective and will not be independent."

Khodorkovsky's chief defence lawyer, Vadim Kluvgant, said it was hard to say how long the preliminary hearing might last as the defence still had many motions to file. He said the defence would raise the issue of the court's jurisdiction again.

Prosecutors say Khodorkovsky, once ranked as Russia's richest man, embezzled 900 billion roubles ($25 billion) and laundered 500 billion roubles.

His lawyers say the charges are absurd because their client is charged with stealing more oil from the YUKOS oil company that he controlled than it produced in the years in question.

Khodorkovsky, who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion in 2005, says he is the victim of corrupt officials who feared his political ambitions and wanted to carve up his YUKOS business empire, which produced more oil than OPEC member Qatar.