Oil magnate jailed for nine years

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 Mr 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 the climax of an 11-month trial.

Platon Lebedev, Mr 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.