MOSCOW – It had the beginnings of a classic courtroom drama: Russian special forces storming the private jet of one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country; an 800-page indictment outlining charges of massive tax evasion and fraud; allegations of political persecution ordered from the highest reaches of the Kremlin.

But as the trial of the Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky crept forward over the last 10 months, it became clear his story was lacking the most important element of any drama: suspense.

When the trial’s judge, Irina Kolesnikova, hands down her verdict on Wednesday, no one, not even his own lawyers, is expecting Mr. Khodorkovsky to get off.

“We’ve known from the beginning there was no chance of an acquittal,” a lawyer on his international defense team, Robert Amsterdam, said. “There is no independent judiciary in Russia – this is a show trial. They mouth the words, but they’re empty of meaning.”

For Mr. Khodorkovsky’s supporters, the trial has been a sham, a stage-managed charade aimed at removing a potential political rival to President Putin and renationalizing his oil company, Yukos. They see his prosecution – and his likely conviction – as yet another sign of Russia’s increasing drift away from democracy and as a warning to potential investors that the country is a dangerous place to do business.

The Kremlin denies any political motives. It likens the prosecution to the Enron case in America and says none of Russia’s super-rich oligarchs – the handful of well-connected businessmen who control most of the country’s wealth – are above the law.

“This is not an act of intimidation or abuse of power, it is a simple criminal case,” a prominent lawmaker from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, Lyubov Sliska, said. “There was enough evidence to believe that there had been significant violations of the law, so the prosecution was absolutely justified.”

At the time of his arrest, Mr. Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man, worth an estimated $15.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. After purchasing Yukos in 1995, Mr. Khodorkovsky transformed it into Russia’s largest oil producer and one of the country’s most profitable companies. He was also a powerful public figure as the owner of a range of press and broadcast holdings and a major financial supporter of political parties in opposition to Mr. Putin.

The first sign of trouble came with the arrest of Mr. Khodorkovsky’s longtime business partner and a key Yukos shareholder, Platon Lebedev, in July 2003. Four months later, Mr. Khodorkovsky was snatched at gunpoint from his private jet in Siberia and imprisoned. The charges, which both men deny, center on a 1994 privatization auction of the country’s biggest fertilizer maker, which the prosecution alleges was fixed so they could acquire it for a knockdown price. At the same time, Yukos came under a barrage of legal claims, including a $28 billion back-tax bill.

Mr. Khodorkovsky’s supporters insist that the Kremlin ordered his arrest and prosecution because of his political activities and in order to reassert state control over the oil industry, the most important sector of the Russian economy. Late last year, the state effectively renationalized Yukos by ordering the sale of its largest production unit to pay part of the disputed tax bill. The unit was eventually picked up by state-owned oil company Rosneft. By March, Forbes was estimating that Mr. Khodorkovsky’s wealth had shrunk to $2.2 billion.

Knowing there was little chance of an acquittal, the defense launched a massive international campaign to win support for Mr. Khodorkovsky as a prisoner of conscience. They took out advertisements in newspapers, set up a host of Web sites devoted to his cause, and lobbied foreign leaders to intervene on his behalf. One supporter called him “Russia’s Nelson Mandela.”

The issue is hardly clear-cut. Some international human-rights organizations have rallied behind Mr. Khodorkovsky, while others have been more cautious in lending support.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has backed his cause, adopting a resolution in January that said the prosecution was designed “to weaken an outspoken political opponent, intimidate other wealthy individuals, and regain control of strategic economic assets.”

But Amnesty International, one of the world’s most important human-rights groups, has refused to declare the charges politically motivated. After repeated requests for it to take a position, Amnesty International released a statement this month that acknowledged “the widespread perception among the defendants’ lawyers, Russian human rights organizations, and other analysts that the cases are politically motivated.”

Amnesty International’s Russia researcher, Victoria Webb, says the group wasn’t prepared to go any further.

“We are not able to say categorically that the charges are politically motivated,” she said. “This is not a straightforward case, it’s very complicated and hard to research adequately.”

There are also mixed signals about the impact the case has had on the Russian economy.

Mr. Amsterdam says there’s no doubt the Yukos affair has put a damper on investment.

“Look at the impact it’s had on economic growth and the increase in capital flight,” he said. “This has highlighted the horrible investor climate in Russia.” Economic growth slowed last year to 7.1% from 7.3%, and capital flight tripled to $7.9 billion.

A series of tax probes similar to the one launched against Yukos is also said to have spooked investors. Earlier this month, the Federal Tax Service slapped British-Russian oil company TNK-BP with a back-tax bill for nearly $1 billion.

Yet somehow, foreign investment in Russia continues to grow. The finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, said earlier this month that foreign companies invested $11 billion in Russia last year, up from $6.5 billion in 2003. Mr. Putin has repeatedly told business executives that their investments are safe, and in March, vowed to limit legal reviews of privatizations and to rein in tax authorities.

Many analysts and business leaders are convinced that the Yukos case was a one-off and remain bullish about Russia.

“There’s no question the perception of risk has increased, but that is just a perception,” Dominic Gualtieri, the head of equities at Alfa Bank, Russia’s biggest non-state bank, said. “The fears are overstated. I don’t think this was ever meant as a wholesale assault on business. The government knows that’s not in its interests.”

The chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, Andrew Sommers, said the Yukos affair has done little to stem American investment in Russia.

“We have not seen any negative impact – the interest of American companies has continued unabated,” he said. “American investment in Russia has been increasing over the last 18 months or two years. … There have been three major deals in the last quarter alone.”

The jury may still be out on the causes and ramifications of the Khodorkovsky case, but the future of the man himself looks all but certain. Prosecutors are demanding he serve the maximum of 10 years in prison and have already announced they are preparing new charges against him.

Mr. Khodorkovsky remains defiant. In an impassioned 40-minute speech delivered to a cramped courtroom on the final day of his trial, he declared the case against him “the fantasies of a pulp-fiction writer” and refused to ask for leniency.

“Everybody knows that I am innocent of these crimes,” he said. “It is shameful for me and my country that this process of direct and open deceit by the prosecution is considered to be legal.”