 RUSSIAN oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed for nine years by a Moscow court, yesterday, in a sentence that provoked a storm of international criticism. Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was sentenced at the end of a marathon 12-day reading of a guilty verdict on six charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion in Moscow's tiny Meschansky Court. George Bush, the United States president, led the criticism yesterday, saying "it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial". Supporters of the Russian tycoon insist he is the victim of a political prosecution, ordered by the Kremlin after Khodorkovsky began backing opposition parties. As the sentence was read Khodorkovsky, sitting in a steel cage flanked by armed policemen, sat looking straight ahead. Asked by one of the three-strong panel of judges if he understood, he said "no sane person" could understand the verdict. |