Enron chiefs accused of 'trickery'

Government prosecutors yesterday made their final pitch to jurors to convict former Enron chief executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

In closing arguments they accused the two men of "accounting tricks, fiction, hocus pocus, [ and] trickery," to conceal the financial failings of what was then the US's seventh biggest company.

Kathryn Ruemmler, a top government prosecutor, said that over the four months of the trial, the jurors had seen enough evidence to find the defendants guilty of the fraud and conspiracy with which they have been charged.

"You have been taken inside the private meetings, you have been taken inside the boardroom, you have been taken inside the private conversations of the most senior people," Ms Ruemmler said. "In this courtroom, you have seen the real story. You have seen through the cover story that deceived investors for so long."

Enron's fraud was so far-reaching, affecting millions of investors, its bankruptcy unleashed a tidal wave of reform in corporate America, culminating in the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reforms.