Later this month a three-judge panel at Moscow's grim Meshchansky Court will reveal the fate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the pioneering oil tycoon whose controversial plunge from Russia's richest man to its most famous felon has sent Russian stock markets reeling and investors scrambling for the exit.
Even Khodorkovsky's lawyers, who argue the 10-month fraud trial that ended last week was a politically motivated farce, appear certain that when the verdict is read on April 27 their client will get the maximum sentence - 10 years in a Russian labour camp.
'This case was not considered on its merits, but on the basis of what the leaders of Russia want,' says John Pappalardo, a former US prosecutor and Khodorkovsky's lawyer. 'We cannot expect anything resembling a fair verdict.'
Since the mid-2003 arrests of Khodorkovsky and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev, the successful oil major they led, Yukos, has been battered to the brink of bankruptcy by back-tax bills totalling US$28 billion. Late last year, Yukos' most profitable production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, was effectively re-nationalised and taken over by the state-owned oil firm Rosneft.
In his final plea to the court last week, the gaunt, brush-cut and bespectacled Khodorkovsky, 41, argued that the criminal case against him, including charges of fraud, forgery and tax evasion, were fabricated by high-ranking officials intent on seizing Russia's most profitable company.
'Those people who are occupied with plundering Yukos' assets are not acting with the interests of the Russian state in mind,' Khodorkovsky said. 'They are back-alley, self-seeking bureaucrats, nothing less'.