Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison today after being found guilty of six out of seven charges in his fraud and tax-evasion trial.
Former head of the Yukos oil company Mikhail Khodorkovsky
A Moscow court declared the tycoon guilty six out of seven charges in a trial widely criticised as politically motivated.
The verdict came in on the 12th day of the laborious process of reaching a verdict in the most closely watched trial of post-Soviet Russia.
Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company and once estimated to be Russia's richest man, has already spent 583 days in jail, meaning he will serve about another seven-and-a-half years.
He looked straight ahead as the sentence was pronounced. In a statement later read outside the court by his defence lawyer, Khodorkovsky said he would not criticise the judge, noting "the pressure she has come under from the initiators of the case when preparing the verdict.
"Judicial power has been turned into a blunt weapon of the authorities," he said in the statement.
Supporters have claimed that Khodokovsky's trial was part of a Kremlin-driven campaign to punish him for funding opposition parties and to stifle his own political ambitions.
Co-defendant Platon Lebedev was found guilty of the same charges and given the same sentence.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev also were ordered to pay more than €337 million in taxes and penalties.
A third defendant in the case, Andrei Krainov, was given a five-and-a-half year suspended sentence.
The court did not sentence them on a charge in relation to Apatit, a fertiliser component company in which Khodorkovsky and Lebedev allegedly acquired a large stake by rigging a privatisation auction.
Although the court considered them guilty, the statue of limitations on the 1994 matter had expired, according to prosecutors.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers are expected to appeal the guilty verdict and sentence in the 10-day period allotted under Russian law.
AP