Judge Refuses to Dismiss Khodorkovsky Case

Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky must remain in jail and face a multibillion-dollar embezzlement case, a Moscow judge ruled Tuesday, refusing a defense request to dismiss the charges.During preliminary hearings that began two weeks ago, Khodorkovsky's lawyers had requested that charges against Khodorkovsky and business partner Platon Lebedev be thrown out.Judge Viktor Danilkin rejected those motions, as well as an argument that he recuse himself for purportedly showing bias against Khodorkovsky and his defense team.Danilkin ordered the trial to begin March 31 and said it would be open to the public.Defense lawyer Natalya Terekhova said after the hearing that the two men had listened to the judges "in the hope of hearing something unexpected, but nothing unexpected happened."In a closed-circuit TV broadcast from the inside the courtroom, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev could be seen standing calmly in their specially built iron and glass cage, fidgeting occasionally.Authorities filed new charges last month against Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, charging that he had committed large-scale fraud in the course of building up his Yukos oil empire. His supporters and Kremlin critics, however, see the new case as a politically driven effort to keep Khodorkovsky behind bars long past the next presidential election in 2012. Khodorkovsky, 45, was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison on fraud and tax evasion charges.