From the Slovak press.

(From Czech News Agency)

BRATISLAVA, June 1 (CTK) - The Moscow court marathon of reading the verdict for Mikhail Khodorkovsky for two weeks has reached the final from which the road leads to a nine-year jail, Pravda writes.

With the lengthy conclusion of the whole trial, the judges certainly did not want to enter the Guinness Book of Records since this was a masterminded play with a clear intention: to tire the public interest or to gradually deflect the media attention. Besides, the last day of the trial was timed for the moments when the world lives with the collapse of the French referendum about the European constitution and its likely Dutch repetition.

An efficient, though cheap trick. However, as the saying has it: what is simple, is beauty.

This was the plan because the trial was sensitively watched in the West.

The last two weeks in the form of a farce changed nothing in the fact that through tax evasion, Khodorkovsky robbed the state.

He himself footed the bill, the court only signed it according to the penal law. The businessman paid dearly for his illegal steps which were eagerly used against him by the Kremlin.