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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: March 13, 2006 |
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A Russian court on Monday convicted three members of an extremist group who were accused of planting an anti-Semitic sign rigged with explosives that injured two men, news reports said.
The Tomsk Regional Court in the city of Tomsk in central Siberia, some 3,500 kilometers (2,170 miles) east of Moscow, sentenced Viktor Lukyanchikov and Igor Kirillov to 23 and 20 years in prison respectively, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. A third member of the group, who had repented and helped the investigation, had received a six-year suspended sentence, the agencies quoted regional prosecutor spokeswoman Galina Zhoga as saying.
The men were convicted on charges of banditry, terrorism and instigating ethnic hatred. They were accused of planting an anti-Semitic sign that exploded in July 2002, injuring two passers-by who tried to remove it from the side of a highway in the Tomsk region.
The incident was one of a series of copycat crimes in which such signs were erected around Russia during that time.
Zhoga said that members of the group also had spilled mercury in a Tomsk restaurant owned by a Jew and plotted to bomb a local synagogue, the ITAR-Tass reported.
Rising xenophobia in Russia in recent years has seen hundreds of racially motivated attacks on targets on foreigners and ethnic minorities, including dark-skinned immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains region and African students.
Jews have also suffered violence, as well as occasional desecration of cemeteries and synagogues. In January, a man armed with a knife burst into a synagogue in downtown Moscow, allegedly stabbing and wounding nine men.
Rights activists say hate groups are emboldened by authorities' failure to take a strong stand against those who commit hate crimes and complain that Nazi and other extremist literature is sold freely throughout Russia.
President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged the problem of anti-Semitism in Russia and urged authorities to take stronger effort to combat hate crimes. However, a group of nationalist Russian lawmakers last year escaped prosecution despite calling for the banning of all Jewish organizations, arguing that they foment ethnic hatred. |
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