MOSCOW, December 25 (RIA Novosti) - A Moscow court on Thursday found Alexei Kurtsin, a former manager of now bankrupt Yukos oil company, guilty of abuse of office and embezzling 74 million rubles ($2.6 million).

"Kurtsin jointly with other defendants in the case embezzled property of particularly high value through their abuse of office," the judge said.

The prosecution has asked for a sentence of 16 years in prison for Kurtsin, and a fine of 500,000 rubles (about $17,500).

Kurtsin was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he was found guilty in the Yukos-Moskva case in December 2005.

Eight other former managers were sentenced to up to 13 years in prison after an investigation showed that Kurtsin and Yukos-Moskva Senior Vice President Mikhail Trushin, who is still at large, laundered 342 million rubles ($11.9 million) through fictitious charities registered in several large Russian cities.

Investigators claim the bulk of laundered funds went directly to Kurtsin and Trushin.

Legal proceedings launched against Yukos in 2003, seen by many as politically motivated, resulted in the conviction of many executives and shareholders of what was Russia's largest oil producer, including founder and CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.