MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI) – Russian national Gennady Gavrilets, who had been deported from the U.S after being on the run for 17 years, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for killing his business partner, press service of the Moscow prosecutor’s office announced on Monday.

The Moscow City Court delivered the sentence basing on the guilty verdict earlier issued by jurors.

Gavrilets was put on the Interpol international wanted list in December 1998, the Interior Ministry official representative Irina Volk said earlier. He was arrested in the U.S. in December 2014. In June 2016, the man was deported to Russia.

According to investigators, the defendant has masterminded the murder of his business partner for the purposes of profit. He paid $20,000 to his accomplices, who killed the man in April 1997.

Four accomplices of Gavrilets were sentenced to long prison terms in June 2000.