By Conor Humphries and Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Fallen Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was brought to court on Tuesday to face new charges of embezzlement and money laundering in a case his lawyers say will test President Dmitry Medvedev's promises to reform Russia.
The fate of Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who fell foul of the Kremlin under former President Vladimir Putin and was jailed in Siberia for tax evasion and fraud, is being closely watched for any signs of a milder tone under Medvedev.
Khodorkovsky, who wore jeans and carried a black briefcase, was brought by guards to the Khamovnichesky court in Moscow, the first time he has appeared in public in the capital since late 2005. A supporter threw white roses towards him.
Khodorkovsky, handcuffed to a guard, looked straight ahead and did not speak as he was led into the building.
"This case of immense importance because of what it will say to all of us about where Russia is going," Robert Amsterdam, a defence lawyer for Khodorkovsky, said by telephone from London before the hearing.
Khodorkovsky says he is the victim of corrupt officials who feared his political ambitions and wanted to carve up his YUKOS business empire, which produced more oil than OPEC member Qatar.
LAWYERS SAY KHODORKOVSKY IS POLITICAL PRISONER
The 45-year-old former businessman, once ranked as Russia's richest man, was brought to Moscow this month from a prison in a remote town near the Chinese border to face new charges at a preliminary court hearing in the capital.
Medvedev, a former lawyer sworn in as president last May, has demanded a clean-up of the Russian court system since Khodorkovsky's sentence and criticised high-level corruption.
Prosecutors say Khodorkovsky helped embezzle 900 billion roubles (17.7 billion pound) and laundered 500 billion roubles, charges that could keep him in jail for 22 years more if found guilty.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers say their client is a political prisoner and the new charges are absurd. They say he is charged with stealing more oil from the YUKOS oil company that he controlled than it produced during the years in question.
Khodorkovsky became one of Russia's most powerful businessmen, widely known as oligarchs because of their immense wealth and influence, by buying state assets cheaply and trading commodities in the chaos after the Soviet Union collapsed.
His arrest in 2003 by officers of the FSB security service at a Siberian airport shocked Russia's business community, which feared the Kremlin would try to regain control of raw materials companies sold off in the 1990s.
Khodorkovsky was convicted in 2005 and is serving a prison term in Chita, about 7,000 km east of Moscow near the Chinese border. He has denied his guilt and blamed senior officials close to Putin, how is now prime minister, for his fate.
Kremlin critics say his arrest and the carve-up of his business empire marked a turning point in Putin's presidency by clipping the oligarchs' wings, allowing hardliners to get the upper hand and shelving reforms.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
