Russian court orders oil tycoon's partner jailed for murders

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

MOSCOW (AFP) — A Russian court on Friday sentenced in absentia a former partner of Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to life in prison for ordering four contract killings, drawing condemnation from the defence.

Giving a gruesome account of the "Wild East" capitalism Russia experienced in the 1990s, the judge, Valery Novikov, said Leonid Nevzlin had organised four murders of business rivals and officials in his time at Yukos.

Nevzlin, a former Yukos deputy chairman now based in Israel and has Israeli citizenship, "has been sentenced to life in a high-security prison," a spokeswoman for the Moscow City Court told AFP after the verdict was read out.

Nevzlin was absent but a representative of the prosecutor's office at the hearing told Russian news agencies...