Pfahls, 62, who served as state secretary for defense from 1987 to 1992 under then chancellor Helmut Kohl, admitted during his trial to receiving about two million euros (2.5 million dollars) in bribes from Canadian-German dealer Karlheinz Schreiber for arms sales and failing to declare the income.

In testimony before the court in this southern German city, Kohl helped clear Pfahls on a separate corruption charge by saying that Pfahls had had no influence over the controversial deal to export 36 armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War.

The former German leader said he had given the go-ahead for the sale alone, after making a secret personal pledge in late 1990 to then US secretary of state James Baker, who had asked Germany to help the Saudis.

Ex-foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher confirmed Pfahls's claim that there had been no tit-for-tat arrangement in his own testimony during the trial, which began in late June.

Presiding judge Maximilian Hofmeister said that while Pfahls may have greased the wheels for the deal, he had not directly violated the duties of his office.

"You accepted money without being corrupt," Hofmeister told the defendant while reading the verdict. "You were working on commission."

After five years on the run, Pfahls was arrested in Paris by French and German police in July last year. He was extradited to Germany in January.

Pfahls could be released as early as September because his time in French and German custody will be counted against the sentence. When half the sentence has been served, the judges may convert the rest to a suspended sentence.

The judgment was in line with an agreement between the prosecution, the defense and the court ahead of the trial that limited his total jail time to two years and three months if nothing during the trial contradicted his confession.

Because Kohl confirmed that the defendant had had no political influence over the armored vehicles deal, the prosecution dropped the more serious corruption charge the day of the former chancellor's testimony.

Defense attorney Volker Hoffmann, who had requested a slightly more lenient sentence, nevertheless called for Pfahls's immediate release on health grounds and said he was considering an appeal of the verdict to increase the likelihood he is placed earlier on probation.

The trial revived uncomfortable memories of campaign financing scandals in Kohl's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) just as the conservatives are attempting to unseat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a general election next month.

Kohl's reputation and his party's credibility were seriously tarnished by a slush fund affair that erupted when a number of dubious deals with Schreiber came to light, forcing the former leader to step down as honorary CDU chairman.

The CDU's chancellor candidate, Angela Merkel, rose to the leadership of the party in the wake of the scandal.

Many court observers said they were disappointed so few answers to the unanswered questions from that shady chapter of the Kohl era came to light during the trial.

They noted that Pfahls's five-year-long odyssey before he handed himself over to authorities strengthened the theory that he had bigger secrets to hide.

The former chairman of the parliamentary committee investigating the Kohl scandals, Volker Neumann, noted Friday it had also never emerged who helped Pfahls go underground.

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