The court postponed proceedings until July 12 in response to a plea from defense lawyers who said they needed more time to study the materials of the case (392 volumes). Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and Andrey Krainov, the former general director of the Volna company, who is also involved in the case, will study the materials in the courtroom.

The hearing was originally scheduled to start on June 16, but Mr. Krainov’s lawyers asked the court to delay proceedings until August 23, and the lawyers of Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev said they needed at least one month to study the case. For his part, Prosecutor Dmitry Shokhin objected to the postponement. The court decided to recesses the hearing taking into account that Genrikh Padva, Mr. Khodorkovsky’s key defense lawyer, was recovering from eye surgery.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev are accused of stealing a 20 percent government stake in the Apatit company. They are charged with fraud (Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code), non-compliance with a court judgment (Article 315), tax evasion (Article 199), causing material damage by way of fraud and abuse of trust (Article 165), document forgery (Article 327) and appropriation of someone else’s property (Article 160). Andrey Krainov is accused under Articles 159,165 and 315.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was detained in Novosibirsk on October 25, 2003. The term of his incarceration has been extended several times.