Russia's Khodorkovsky jailed for 9 years

MOSCOW - Oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion yesterday in a trial widely seen as orchestrated by the Kremlin to crush a political rival.

"My sentence has been decided in the Kremlin," an unrepentant Khodorkovsky, 41, said in a statement read to reporters by his lawyer.

The severe sentence -- a year short of the maximum demanded by the prosecution -- raised eyebrows in Washington and is certain to stoke concerns among investors about the high risk of doing business in President Vladimir Putin's Russia.

The central Moscow court found the billionaire guilty of six of seven charges of fraud and tax evasion in a verdict that took judges 12 days to read at eh climax of an 11-month trial.

Platon Lebedev, Khodorkovsky's business associate in the Yukos oil company crushed under the weight of back tax claims, was handed the same sentence. Both plan to appeal.

"Khodorkovsky and Lebedev entered into an organised group with the aim of illegally appropriating other people's property and then selling the assets for their own gain," said chief judge Irina Kolesnikova.

"The court finds (the defence arguments) to be groundless."

A charge of repeated forgery of documents was dropped.

Standing to hear the sentence, Khodorkovsky looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as it was read out. Outside the heavily guarded court, his supporters shouted "Shame!".

The verdict produced a gasp from Khodorkovsky's female relatives, one exclaiming: "How could you do that to a person?"

Khodorkovsky's mother, Marina, said she thought the outcome was to be expected in a Russia, ruled by Putin, a former agent of the Soviet KGB security service.

"We lost our son on the day when Putin came to power," she told reporters. "We are old people, and we know from our own experience who they are, these KGB people."

After the verdict, the prosecutor general's office said it had found the sentence fair and promised new money-laundering charges against Khodorkovsky coming soon.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were both sentenced to prison where inmates live in barracks with relative freedom to move around within the grounds of the jail. But they will stay in their Moscow jail until appeals have been exhausted.

The sentence stirred unease in the West.

US President George W Bush said in Washington he had already expressed his concerns about the outcome of the Khodorkovsky case directly to Putin.

"As I explained to him, here you're innocent until proven guilty, and it appeared to us -- at least people in my administration -- that it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to (having) a fair trial," Bush told a news conference.

Bush said the United States wanted to see how the appeal will be handled.

Britain's ambassador to Russia, Tony Brenton, warned the outcome of the trial could have a major impact on business and investor confidence in Russia.

But Khodorkovsky's plight is unlikely to elicit support from ordinary Russians.

They mostly view the hugely wealthy, and usually young, oligarchs like Khodorkovsky who emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union as little more than thieves of state wealth who left them even worse off than under communist rule.

Khodorkovsky has spent nearly 20 months in jail and Lebedev almost two years, time that will be taken off their sentences.

"(We) see this sentence as an incredible perversion of justice ... this system not only readily fulfilled the order to destroy Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but, it seems, wants to ruin Yukos itself," Yukos said in a statement.

After the verdict, Yukos said it would file a 324 billion rouble ($16.4 billion) suit against the government in compensation for the enforced sale of its main asset, now in the hands of a state firm.

"There was no reason to expect a soft sentence," said Masha Lipman, political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center who said the judges had so taken the side of the prosecution they had reportedly even repeated its spelling and arithmetical errors.

"Nobody has any illusions the court was independent, not even the broader public. The sentence had to be long enough so Khodorkovsky was in jail in 2008, at the next presidential elections."

- REUTERS