A Moscow court has sentenced former Yukos deputy manager Alexei Kurtsin to 15 1/2 years in prison for embezzlement, court spokeswoman Anna Usacheva said on Tuesday.
The Preobrazhensky District Court handed down the sentence in late December, Usacheva said, adding that Kurtsin was also fined 1 million rubles ($34,000).
Two other defendants, Yury Ivanov and Konstantin Vinogradov, were sentenced to eight year jail terms.
Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving eight years in prison for fraud and tax evasion. He has consistently denied all charges against him, saying he was punished for supporting the tiny pro-Western political opposition. He claims the liquidation of Yukos was engineered by corrupt government officials aiming to seize lucrative oil assets.
Kurtsin has two other convictions over his activities at Yukos. In December 2008 he was sentenced to 12 years for embezzling and laundering 74 million rubles, while in December 2005 he received a 14-year sentence for embezzling and laundering 343 million rubles belonging to Yukos.
In the latest case, he and his co-defendants were found guilty of stealing 49 million rubles by transferring the funds to banks accounts belonging to two fake NGOs, Democratic Union and Sports Car Club Track.
MOSCOW, January 12 (RIA Novosti)
