The Moscow District Military Court has sentenced the defendants whom the jury earlier found guilty of complicity in killing opposition politician Boris Nemtsov to prison terms ranging from 11 to 19 years, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courthouse on July 13.
In particular, Judge Yury Zhitnikov ruled on July 13 to sentence Anzor Gubashev to 19 years, his brother Shadid Gubashev to 16 years, Temirlan Eskerkhanov to 14 years, and Khamzat Bakhayev to 11 years in a strict security penitentiary.
All the defendants have also been fined 100,000 rubles each.
The time during which the defendants remained in custody pending trial will be counted toward the overall term of imprisonment.
The court qualified the defendants’ deeds as a contract killing for financial gain and illegal circulation of weapons by an organized group.
In handing down the sentence, the court took into account that the defendants had not been previously involved in any wrongdoing, had positive references and small children.
The court stripped Eskerkhanov of his police rank as warrant officer.
The prosecution had asked the court on July 12 to sentence Zaur Dadayev, whom the jury had earlier found guilty of firing fatal shots at Nemtsov, to life in prison and his accessories to prison terms ranging from 17 to 23 years. In particular, the prosecution wanted Anzor Gubashev to be sentenced to 23 years, Shadid Gubashev to 21 years, Temirlan Eskerkhanov to 19 years, and Khamzat Bakhayev to 17 years in a strict security penitentiary.
The defense asked the court to exercise its right to dissolve the jury due to the absence of evidence of the defendants’ involvement in the crime or acquit them due to absence of corpus delicti.
Representatives for the aggrieved party, Nemtsov’s daughter Zhanna Nemtsova, said they still doubted Khamzat Bakhayev’s guilt.
In their last pleas, the defendants apologized to their families and loved ones, who supported them all along from the moment of their arrest, and again insisted that they had not been responsible for the crime.
It was reported earlier that the jury ruled on June 29 to find all the five defendants in the criminal case dealing with Nemtsov’s assassination guilty and not deserving lenience.
Nemtsov was killed on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, just several hundred meters away from the Kremlin, on February 27, 2015.
