Faced with calls to intervene in the case of Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, President Vladimir Putin told a Cabinet meeting Monday that it was up to the courts to decide guilt or innocence.

His comments highlighted the role of the Basmanny court, the Moscow district court that sanctioned Khodorkovsky's pretrial detention and has issued repeated rulings in favor of prosecutors investigating Yukos executives.

Kommersant, in an article published Monday, said Yukos lawyers had described the court's judgments as biased in favor of prosecutors.

"Yukos lawyers call the Basmanny court a pocket court [of the Prosecutor General's Office]: In all these cases the court only rules in favor of the prosecutors," Kommersant wrote Monday.

Khodorkovsky's detention was the latest in a series of high-profile cases involving the Basmanny Court. In July, the court sanctioned the detention of Platon Lebedev, Yukos' second-largest shareholder, who has remained in custody since.

The court has repeatedly denied appeals by Lebedev's lawyers, including an appeal to release him pending his trial.

In August, the court also ruled that a search of Yukos archives by the Prosecutor General Office's was legal, rejecting company claims that the law enforcement agents who carried out the operation violated several laws.

Gazeta reported Monday that Andrei Rasnovsky, the Basmanny court judge who approved Khodorkovsky's arrest, is a former employee of the Prosecutor General's Office. The Prosecutor General's Office and court officials declined to confirm or deny the report when contacted Monday.

Other lawyers who have cases pending at the Basmanny court claimed that some judges, including Rasnovsky, were known for ruling in favor of prosecutors' requests in a majority of criminal cases.

"I do believe that the Basmanny court is biased, mainly because it considers most of the cases investigated by the Prosecutor General's Office," lawyer Vladimir Levin said.

Levin represented General Vladimir Ganeyev at the Basmanny court earlier this year in a corruption investigation involving Ganeyev and six high-ranking police officials suspected of extorting millions of dollars from businessmen, which became known as the "Werewolves" case. On July 25 the court ruled that all seven should be held in pretrial detention.

Levin said cases investigated by the investigative department of the Prosecutor General's Office supposedly end up at the court because they are in the same district, but in reality the prosecutors simply find it convenient to work with what he described as "loyal" judges.

"The judges have repeatedly rejected all demands of the defense counsel and have been seen conferring with the prosecutors ahead of the hearings," Levin said in a telephone interview Monday.

The Prosecutor General's Office and the Basmanny court officials declined to comment on allegations of bias when contacted Monday.