Key YUKOS shareholder Vasily Shakhnovsky, charged with tax evasion and forgery by the Russian authorities, was freed by a Moscow court on Thursday

Key YUKOS shareholder Vasily Shakhnovsky, charged with tax evasion and forgery by the Russian authorities, was freed by a Moscow court on Thursday. Shakhnovsky was found guilty of tax evasion, handed a one-year suspended sentence and immediately released under an amnesty act. The forgery charge was dropped. The news sent YUKOS shares up nearly two percent. Shakhnovsky went on trial in mid-January. Despite the fact that the entrepreneur had repaid his debt to the state in full, followed by the Tax Ministry’s withdrawal of its claim against him, a Moscow court refused to grant a request by his lawyers to drop the charges. The prosecutor asked the court to sentence Shakhnovsky to eighteen months in a penal colony. On Thursday the Meshchansky court in central Moscow passed its verdict, saying he was guilty of tax evasion, and handed him a one-year suspended sentence. Irina Kolesnikova, judge of the central Moscow Mechshanky court, told reporters that Shakhnovsky had been found guilty, but freed due to ''changed circumstances''. Shakhnovsky's lawyers quoted a court decision as saying he was no longer working for YUKOS or its affiliates and did not represent any threat to society.