The Supreme Court in Russia's northwest Republic of Karelia on Thursday handed down long-term prison sentences to six people from the North Caucasus who incited a huge interethnic brawl in Kondopoga.
Kondopoga, near the Finnish border, experienced a wave of racial violence in early September 2006 after two local residents were killed and five others injured in a restaurant brawl with ethnic Chechens on August 30.
The incident sparked racially motivated violence in the community, and a wave of nationalist protests elsewhere in the country. A total of 109 people were detained in the city on suspicion of involvement in pogroms and arson attacks.
According to the verdict, Islam Magomadov, who was accused of killing two Kondopoga residents and attempting to kill and inflict severe bodily damage to another two local residents, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Two other individuals, Aslambek Bakanayev and Said-Magomed Edilsultanov, accused of inflicting severe bodily damage and hooliganism were sentenced to 10 and 6 years respectively.
Another three individuals from the North Caucasus received sentences ranging from three to six years.
In March 2007, a court in northern Russia sentenced two men to three and a half years and eight months in prison for their part in the Kondopoga restaurant brawl, which triggered racial violence in the region.
In November 2007, the Kondopoga court gave 12 people, convicted of taking part in the September 2006 mass ethnic brawl, three-year suspended sentences.
The court found them guilty of damaging private and municipal property, but not of inciting racial hatred because they had partially admitted their guilt.
PETROZAVODSK, April 1 (RIA Novosti)
