Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon who was once Russia's richest man, was found guilty today of the first of the 11 charges against him in his long-run tax evasion and fraud trial.

The reading of the verdict and sentencing against Mr Khodorkovsky and his former business partner, Platon Lebedev, had begun on Monday, and after pronouncing on the first charge today, Judge Yelena Maximova declared a further adjournment. The session will resume at 0730 BST on Wednesday.

There was no indication yet of the sentence in the politically-charged case, which has disturbed foreign investors and raised concern about Russia's respect for the rule of law.

Observers expect Mr Khodorkovsky to be found guilty on all charges. Mr Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company and once Russia's leading post-Communist oligarch, was charged with tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement, among other crimes. Prosecutors have asked for the maximum ten-year prison sentence.

There was speculation today that the court would impose a lighter sentence in the case. One of Mr Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, Genrikh Padva, said phrasings in the verdict, which was being read aloud by Judge Irina Kolesnikova and two colleagues, "give hope for a softer sentence".

Police this morning increased security outside the court building, erecting crowd barriers and metal detectors on both sides of the street and stopping passing cars for inspection. Mr Khodorkovsky's supporters contend the case against him was Kremlin-directed revenge for his funding of opposition parties.

About 100 anti-Khodorkovsky demonstrators carried placards bearing slogans such as "Khodorkovsky, return our money", reflecting the resentment among many Russians of businessmen like Mr Khodorkovsky, who became enormously wealthy in the 1990s economic free-for-all following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A pro-Khodorkovsky demonstration outside the court a day earlier was forcibly dispersed by police. Sergei Mitrokhin, a liberal politician who said he was detained and beaten in that incident, said today's demonstrators had been seen leaving the Federal Security Service headquarters in Moscow in the morning, implying their demonstration had been organised by the government. Mr Khodorkovsky was delivered to a side entrance in an armored van, out of public view.

The judge's words yesterday - echoing much of the phrasing of the indictment - had held little hope for the Khodorkovsky camp. Under the Russian legal system, the verdict is not a simple pronouncement of guilt or acquittal but a long statement of the facts of the case before the decision is stated.

The material read out yesterday included phrases such as "lying information" and "acting as part of a criminal group". One of his laywers complained that the verdict was parrotting the indictment "right down to the spelling errors".

Mr Khodorkovsky has been imprisoned since October 2003, when special forces arrested him in a dramatic raid on his jet at a Siberian airport. His co-defendant, business partner Platon Lebedev, was arrested three months earlier. Both are charged with crimes related to the 1994 privatisation of a fertilizer-component company.

During Mr Khodorkovsky's 19 months in prison, Yukos has been hit with billions of dollars in back tax bills and its key production subsidiary acquired by the state after an auction ordered to meet part of the tax arrears.

Prosecutor Dmitry Shokhin, who has sat expressionless through the reading, has called for both Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev to receive the maximum sentence.

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