06.08 Russian Court Cuts Jail Term for Ex-Oil Tycoon Khodorkovsky
MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) Russias top court on Tuesday ruled to reduce the prison terms for the jailed former head of oil giant Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner by two months.
Considering their defenses appeal for immediate release, Russias Supreme Court ruled to cut their sentences by two months to 10 years and 10 months.
Khodorkovsky's jail term will now end in August 2014 and that of his business partner Platon Lebedev in May 2014.
Their defense said it would appeal again for their immediate release.
Lebedev has already spent ten years and one month in jail, and Khodorkovsky has been behind bars for nine years and eight months, RAPSI legal news agency reported.
The two men were originally charged with fraud and tax evasion in 2004 and convicted the following year. Then, in a new case, a Moscow district court sentenced them to 14 years in prison on fraud and embezzlement charges in 2010.
In December 2012, Moscow City Court cut their sentences to 11 years, meaning they are due to be released in 2014.
Khodorkovsky joined Tuesday's hearing via video link from prison in the northwestern Republic of Karelia, and asked the panel of judges to cancel the verdict that he considers illegitimate.
Unfair court decisions have already become one of the main detonators for protests, Khodorkovsky said, referring to the spate of anti-Kremlin demonstrations that have happened since the end of 2011.
The demands of an ever greater part of society can be boiled down to Solzhenitsyns
