Lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky called theft and money-laundering charges brought against the imprisoned former chief executive officer of OAO Yukos Oil Co. “laughable” and groundless.

“Bureaucrats with security backgrounds have spent several years, huge amounts of state money and a large measure of the reputation of our legal system to fabricate clearly laughable charges” against Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev, the defense team said today on its Web site.

Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin yesterday confirmed the investigators’ conclusion that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are guilty of charges that include embezzling oil worth more than 892.4 billion rubles ($24.9 billion) from Yukos production units and laundering a part of the profits, 487.4 billion rubles and $7.5 billion. Prosecutors also allege that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev conspired in 1998 with other Yukos shareholders to embezzle and launder shares worth 3.6 billion rubles in companies associated with Vostochnaya Oil Co., in which Yukos held a controlling stake.

The next step, Khodorkovsky’s lawyers say, is for the case to go to trial.

“By law the trial should be held in Moscow,” Yuri Schmidt said by telephone. The trial should begin in “a matter of weeks,” the defense team said in an e-mailed statement. ‘