Russian oil tycoon sentenced to nine years behind bars

A MOSCOW court declared oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of an array of charges yesterday in a trial widely criticised as politically motivated, sentencing him to nine years in prison minus time served.

The declaration of guilt and sentence came in day 12 of the laborious verdict-reading process 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 would serve about another seven and a half years in prison.