MOSCOW – A Moscow judge handed former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky a 14 year jail term Thursday in his second trial on money laundering and embezzlement charges, an AFP correspondent reported.
Taking into account time served since his first arrest in 2003, this means that the Yukos oil company founder and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev will stay in jail until 2017, Russian news agencies said.
The defence, which has vowed to appeal the conviction, has yet to comment on the sentencing in the closely-watched trial, which has been condemned as a case of selective justive by Western governments including the United States.