Russia wants to question former oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky as a suspect in a murder case that has been reopened because of new evidence, federal investigators announced.

The Moscow court reading the verdict in the trial of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky today said it considers him guilty of fraud, but under a section of the criminal code that offers a slightly lesser sentence than the original charge.

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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today scheduled a news conference that is expected to be overshadowed by the controversial sale of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s core unit and the Kremlin’s course toward Ukraine.

The plot thickens over the mysterious backroom deals that have quietly handed the Kremlin control of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s most important production unit – an apparently secret, no-bid sale to Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft.