Russian ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were sentenced on Thursday to 14 years behind bars, including time already served.
Judge Viktor Danilkin delivered the sentence after convicting Russia's once richest man Khodorkovsky of stealing 218 million tons of oil from his own company, Yukos, and laundering the proceeds, worth around $100 million.
The two men have already spent seven years in jail for fraud and tax evasion from their 2005 trial.
Khodorkovsky's press service said the two men would serve their sentence in a low-security penal colony and could be released in 2017.
The trial is seen by some analysts as a political vendetta by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whom Khodorkovsky challenged by funding the liberal opposition in the early 2000s.
After the trial, defense lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant said his clients were not going to plead for a presidential pardon.
Another of Khodorkovsky's defense team, Yury Shmidt, said they were planning to appeal since "the verdict is illegal, unjustified, not based on the real evidence and was made under pressure."
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently stated that "a thief belongs in jail" when asked about the Khodorkovsky case.
"Long live our humane, independent court!" Khodorkovsky commented in his Twitter account after the trial.
Russian rights activists have decried the new jail term.
Opposition movement For Human Rights leader Lev Ponomaryov said the outcome of the case was "a verdict for the whole Russian judicial system." Russia's non-parliamentary parties have also slammed the verdict.
Leonid Gozman, co-chairman of the Right Cause, widely seen as a pro-Kremlin party, said the court's decision was "absolutely groundless and senseless cruelty."
Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of Russia's democratic Yabloko party, called the verdict an "abuse of the judicial system."
The verdict was "politically motivated" and must be overturned, he said.
Germany was one of the first EU countries to voice its concerns over the Khodorkovsky verdict on Thursday.
"The trial and the verdict pose serious questions over whether Russia is governed by the rule of law and is a step backwards from Russia's modernization declared by President [Dmitry] Medvedev," German government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said.
The U.S. State Department also condemned the verdict.
"We remain concerned by the allegations of serious due process violations, and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends, particularly now that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have been sentenced to the maximum penalty," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
"Simply put, the Russian government cannot nurture a modern economy without also developing an independent judiciary that serves as an instrument for furthering economic growth, ensuring equal treatment under the law, and advancing justice in a predictable and fair way."
A White House source also suggested the result of the trial could complicate Russia's chance of joining the World Trade Organization, which it has been seeking membership of for the last 17 years.
MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti)
