Yukos tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky returns to court for a fourth day for the gruelling reading of the verdict in his fraud case today, with his frustrated lawyers speculating that the numbing pace is aimed at killing interest in the biggest trial in post-Soviet Russia.

Alex Nicholson, Moscow

Russia’s richest man, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, appeared in a Moscow court today for the first substantive hearing in a case that threatens to bring down the business empire he built.