Former Yukos boss jailed for nine years

MIKHAIL Khodorkovsky has been jailed for nine years for fraud and tax evasion at the end of an 11-month trial widely seen as orchestrated by the Russian government to punish the oil tycoon for political challenges to the Kremlin.

Found guilty on six out of seven charges, the former Yukos chief faces a jail term just one year less than the 10-year maximum sought by the prosecution.

Yukos attacked the verdict as a 'tragic example of the authorities turning a lawenforcement and judicial system against an individual for political ends'.

On remand since his dramatic arrest at gunpoint in October 2003, Khodorkovsky, 41, told the court the sentence was a 'testament to Basmanny justice' - a sarcastic reference to the Moscow court where the initial hearings were held.

Receiving the same sentence, Platon Lebedev, Khodorkovsky's Yukos business associate, slammed the court proceedings, saying 'not one normal, sane person would understand what has been read out here'.

Analysts said the sentence was surprisingly harsh. Most had expected Khodorkovsky to be jailed until late 2008 - a few months after Russia's next Presidential election.

Investor confidence in Russia has been badly shaken by the fate of Yukos, which has faced demands for some $28bn (£15.3bn) of back tax, and by the apparent political persecution of Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man.