Source:
Reuters<
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"A top manager of the now defunct YUKOS business empire was sentenced on Friday by a Russian court to life in prison for ordering a series of high profile murders, a verdict he dismissed as the result of a show trial organized by the Kremlin.
The Moscow city court found Leonid Nevzlin, one of YUKOS chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky's closest advisers, guilty of organizing five murders including the killing of a local mayor where the oil firm's biggest production unit was based.
"The court has decided that as Nevzlin poses a special threat to society he should serve life in a high security prison," Judge Valery Novikov said.
The court also ruled that Nevzlin -- who fled to Israel in 2003 -- should pay 5.5 million roubles ($235,000) in compensation to the victims. He was also found guilty of three attempted murders.
Nevzlin was once a major shareholders in the YUKOS empire, which has been divided up and sold off by the Russian state to pay for huge back tax claims levied by the tax authorities."
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http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL136480520080801