MOSCOW, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- A Russian prosecutor says almost three years should be shaved from the sentence being served by a former tycoon involved with the Yukos Oil Co.
If the court agrees, Platon Lebedev could be released in 2014, RIA Novosti reported.
Lebedev was sentenced to 13 years in prison for working with Mikhail Khodorkovsky to allegedly loot Yukos while the men were running the company.
Lebedev was the chief executive officer of Khodorkovsky's holding company, Group Menatep. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion and then tried with Khodorkovsky on embezzlement and money laundering charges and convicted again.
The prosecutor says that a new law reduces Lebedev's sentence. The prosecutor opposed reducing the sentence to time served but said Lebedev should serve no more than 11 years and three months, making him eligible for release in October 2014.
Amnesty International has declared Lebedev and Khodorkovsky to be prisoners of conscience, saying they were tried on the embezzlement charge because of their opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
