VELSK, (Arkhangelsk Region), August 8 - RAPSI. The Velsk Court in the Arkhangelsk Region has reduced the prison term of former Menatep head Platon Lebedev, sentenced to 13 years in prison, by three years and four months.

"The defendant is sentenced to a total of nine years and eight months," judge Viktor Ivanov said.

Lebedev's attorney said that his client, who has spent nine years in prison, will be released in February 2013.

In late 2010, a Moscow district court sentenced former YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev to 14 years in prison for oil theft and money laundering. They were to be released in 2017, taking into consideration the time they had already served for their convictions from their first trial in 2005.

However, in May 2011 the Moscow City Court reduced their sentences by one year, meaning they were expected to be released in 2016.

Lebedev submitted the appeal to mitigate his sentence after retroactively applicable amendments were introduced to the Criminal Code, reducing the punishment for his crime from ten years to seven.