Russian prosecutors demanded the former security chief of oil major Yukos be jailed for life after a jury found him guilty of murder and attempted murder, his lawyer said yesterday.
Alexei Pichugin was convicted on Thursday of organising the killing of Sergei and Olga Gorin in 2002 on the orders of Leonid Nevzlin, a top Yukos executive wanted by Russia who is in exile in Israel.
Pichugin was also found guilty of attempting to murder Olga Kostina, a former adviser to Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Nevzlin denies any wrongdoing.
A lawyer for Pichugin said a sentence was likely to be handed down on Wednesday.
Yukos has said Pichugin's trial, which has been mostly closed to the media, is part of a Kremlin campaign to dismember the firm and punish Khodorkovsky for his political opposition to President Vladimir Putin.
The Pichugin case could give an indication of how severely Khodorkovsky and business partner Platon Lebedev may be punished if are convicted in a separate trial for fraud and tax evasion.
Closing arguments in the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev trial, which began last June, have been set for Monday.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev face maximum jail terms of 10 years if found guilty over their role in the 1994 privatisation of a fertilizer company.
