A Russian judge ordered former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky jailed until 2017 on Thursday after being convicted of theft and money-laundering, in a court case seen by the West as a test of the rule of law in Russia. Moscow judge Viktor Danilkin granted the prosecutors' sentencing request and ordered Khodorkovsky to serve 14 years in prison, including his current eight-year term and counting from the day of his arrest in October 2003.
With Khodorkovky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev watching from a glass-walled courtroom cage at the close of a trial sharply criticised by the West, the judge said there was no way they could be reformed without "isolation from society". Dressed in black, Khodorkovsky, whose previous sentence was due to end next October, stood stunned as Danilkin announced the sentence, which his lawyers said was made under pressure from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
"May God damn you and your descendants," Khodorkovsky's mother, Marina, shouted at the judge's back as he hurriedly left the courtroom immediately after the sentencing. Khodorkovsky had adamantly denied the charges, and supporters said the conviction made a mockery of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's pledges to improve the rule of law. "The sentence was clearly issued under pressure from the executive authorities, headed as before by Mr Putin," said Yuri Shmidt, a lawyer on the defence team.
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