DUSHANBE, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Tajikistan's supreme court has handed a 15-year jail sentence to a man who took part in the 1995 killing of a BBC Persian service journalist, a court spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.

'Nasrullo Sharifov, a 40-year-old member of an anti-government opposition formation, personally shot BBC reporter Mukhiddin Olimpur,' said the spokesman, Makhmadullo Yusupov, citing the suspect's confession in court.

Olimpur, a Tajik citizen, was seized from a bus stop in December 1995 at the height of a civil war in the former Soviet state. He was taken to a deserted spot by a river in the capital and shot several times.

Three other members of the same armed group as Sharifov's have already been convicted for his killing and sentenced to between 15 and 22 years.

The latest trial heard that the man who ordered Olimpur's murder had been killed in fighting with government troops in 1999.

Sharifov was extradited to stand trial in Tajikistan after serving a sentence for armed robbery in Russia.