Reduced sentence for Khodorkovsky
2012-12-20 20:50
Moscow - A Russian court reduced former oil tycoon
Mikhail Khodorkovsky's jail sentence by two years on Thursday and he could walk
free in October 2014, Russian news agencies said.
Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man but was jailed
on charges of fraud on tax evasion after falling out with President Vladimir
Putin.
His website also said he could be released in October
2014 after serving 11 years of a 13-year sentence. Under the ruling, his
business partner Platon Lebedev would be released early, in July 2014, it said.
Supporters regard the two men as political prisoners.
They have waged court battles for years against their sentences, both in Russia
and in the European Court of Human Rights.
In the latest appeal, their lawyers based their cases of
changes to Russian criminal law. The defence lawyers said the ruling was timed
to coincide with Putin's annual news conference on Thursday.
Khodorkovsky, 49, is one of the tycoons who made fortunes
following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He says he has been
prosecuted over business practises that were both legal and widely used.
Yukos was bankrupted and sold off, mainly into state
hands, after Khodorkovsky's jailing. Khodorkovsky had appeared to defy calls by
Putin for rich businessmen, or oligarchs, not to get involved in politics.
