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Parents of murdered Tajik girl appeal non-guilty verdict

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ST. PETERSBURG, April 4 (RIA Novosti) - The parents of a nine-year girl who died after being attacked by a group of young men have launched an appeal in a St. Petersburg court against a jury decision to clear a defendant of the killing of their daughter.

Khursheda Sultonova was stabbed to death in St. Petersburg in February 2004. The jury convicted the main defendant in the trial of robbery and hooliganism, and cleared him of murder charges. Six others were found guilty of hooliganism, and another was cleared of all charges.

The defendants, whose names have not been released for legal reasons, were mostly teenagers at the time of the brutal attack, which is widely seen as one of the worst racially motivated crimes in Russia in recent years. Only one was charged with murder, while the others were charged with assaulting Khursheda, her father and 11-year-old cousin.

A lawyer representing the victim's family, Natella Ponomaryova, said earlier that the jury had decided the real murderers were still at large. An investigation into the attack established that 11 people had taken part in the assault.

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