MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Supreme Court has upheld prison sentences for 13 gunmen involved in a bloody raid on the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia in 2004, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Tuesday.
Ingushetia's Supreme Court sentenced the attackers to eight to 25 years in prison August 3 for the raid on the Russian republic, when 19 police precincts and prisons were attacked and a total of 90 people, including 62 police officers and 28 civilians, were killed and 93 injured.
The federal Supreme Court thereby dismissed an appeal filed by lawyers acting for the defendants.
The raid, believed to have been led by Russia's most notorious terrorist, Shamil Basayev, and his associate, Doku Umarov, was perpetrated from neighboring Chechnya. The militants seized a large amount of small arms and set a police precinct and some other buildings ablaze at the time.
Basayev, who also claimed responsibility for the Beslan school siege, was killed in Chechnya in July, and Umarov remains the only prominent militant leader yet to be caught by Russian forces.
Ingushetia has been plagued by violence recently, including several fatal attacks targeting law-enforcement officers in August, and a major explosion at a railroad crossing near the border with Chechnya in early September, which did not kill or injure anyone.
