ST.-PETERSBURG, March 1 - RAPSI. A St. Petersburg district court sentenced on Thursday former MP Mikhail Glushchenko to eight years in prison for extorting $10 million, RIA Novosti reports.

The court has also fined Glushchenko 300,000 rubles ($10,000). However, it held against the lawsuit filed by the aggrieved party for 1 million rubles ($35,000) in moral damages.

Investigators maintain that Glushchenko extorted from two Russian businessmen money and property worth $10 million between December 2003 and February 2004.

In addition, he is also suspected of arranging the murder of three Russian citizens, whose bodies were found in the vicinity of Pathos, Cyprus in March 2004. Glushchenko was arrested in the case in St. Petersburg in June 2009. The investigation continues.

In 2004, a witness in the high-profile murder of MP Galina Starovoitova also named Glushchenko as one of the individuals who ordered her assassination.

The defendant called the sentence an "outrage".