Six Russian skinheads were sentenced on Tuesday to prison terms ranging from 8 to 19 years for a series of race-hate murders in the Moscow region in 2009 and 2010.
The jury at the Moscow City Court found all of them guilty of beating up and stabbing to death an Armenian national in 2009 and an Asian-ethnic male in 2010. They were also found guilty of assaulting an Arab national inflicting him with 27 knife wounds, but the victim managed to escape and survived as was timely hospitalized.
The court gave the longest sentence of 19 years to Yemelyan Nikolayev. The term was added up to his previously suspended sentence also on murder charges. The court gave his accomplice Dmitry Sudakov a milder sentence of 14 years in prison.
Four more accused skinheads in the case were minors at the moment they committed the crimes and in line with the Russian law they could not be sentenced to terms of more than 10 years.
Vladimir Stepanov, Vladimir Belyakov and Alexander Kichutkin received sentences of 10 years each, while Alexei Kiselyov will serve eight years in prison.
Judge Sergei Podoprigorov said he delivered the verdict taking into account the social lifestyle of the accused, their upbringing, psychological evolution and influence of elder people on them.
