A Russian court on Friday rejected a request from jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky for parole, almost five years after his arrest for financial crimes, news agencies reported.
  
The request by Khodorkovsky, a prominent Kremlin critic who was once Russia's richest man, was rejected by a court in the Siberian city of Chita, the Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported.
  
"The court has decided to reject the petition and the decision can be appealed within ten days in the Chita regional court," a court official told RIA Novosti.
  
Khodorkovsky's lawyers applied for parole last month, hoping the courts would be more lenient toward their client under President Dmitry Medvedev than his predecessor Vladimir Putin.
  
Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yuri Schmidt, immediately announced he would challenge the ruling, saying: "We of course will appeal this decision", Interfax reported.
  
Khodorkovsky is serving out an eight-year prison sentence handed out in 2003 for fraud and tax evasion committed while he was the chief executive of Yukos, a giant oil company that is now bankrupt.
  
New charges of money-laundering and stealing oil from Yukos subsidiaries were filed against him in June that could prolong his time in prison.
  
His supporters say the new charges are aimed at keeping him behind bars indefinitely, and his lawyers say they are a rehash of the original charges.
  
The former tycoon said in a newspaper interview on Friday that if freed he would not return to the oil business and would not mount any legal battle for his former Yukos company.
  
"I have already told the court that I am not prepared to return to the oil business and will not seek to overturn unfair decisions concerning Yukos," Khodorkovsky told Vedomosti newspaper.
  
The former Yukos boss claimed he was eligible for parole after serving half his sentence, but in June he was hit with the new charges of laundering 28 billions of dollars (19 billion euros) and stealing almost 350 million tonnes of oil.
  
Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 as part of a broader campaign against Yukos seen as a Kremlin-led effort to rein in Russia's powerful tycoons.