MOSCOW, July 3 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) - The Tverskoi District Court in Moscow has retired until July 11 to consider the verdict in the case against Sergei Magnitsky, the late Hermitage Capital auditor, and the fund's CEO William Browder, RAPSI reports from the courtroom on Wednesday.

The verdict and sentence will be announced on July 11. On Wednesday the prosecutor asked the court to convict Magnitsky of tax evasion but to dismiss the case against him due to his death, and to sentence Browder to nine years in prison.

Browder is believed to have illegally purchased Gazprom stock when foreign ownership of the world's largest natural gas producer was restricted.

He is also on trial in absentia alongside Magnitsky for the alleged embezzlement of hundreds of millions of rubles from the federal budget by manipulating tax returns between September and October 2007.

Hermitage Capital maintains that it paid 5.4 billion rubles ($180 million) in taxes, but the money was stolen by corporate raiders with the help of law enforcement officials.

Magnitsky, who died in pretrial detention in Moscow in 2009, was prosecuted for this theft. The case was closed after his death, only to be reopened later. Under Russian law, a person can be prosecuted after their death.

In March 2013, Browder announced that Hermitage Capital would cease its operations in Russia.