The St. Petersburg City Court has sentenced seven teenagers to prison sentences of up to 12 years for murdering an antiracism campaigner.
Timur Kacharava, a 20-year-old antiracism activist, and his friend Maksim Zgibai were attacked outside a St. Petersburg bookstore in November 2005 by a group of teenagers.
Kacharava was stabbed to death and died on the scene. Zgibai survived the attack despite multiple knife wounds and severe brain damage.
Today, the St. Petersburg City Court sentenced seven teenagers to prison for the attack. The main defendant, who is now 14 years old, was sentenced to 12 years for murder and attempted murder.
The other defendants received prison sentences ranging from two to three years -- some of them suspended -- on charges of hooliganism and inciting ethnic hatred.
'Tough Response' Needed
For Aleksandr Brod, the president of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, the verdict is a step in the right direction.
"On the whole, it's a fair verdict," Brod says. "Judges are progressively awakening to the danger of growing fascist tendencies in Russia. In our view, a tough response from prosecutors and judges is one of the best ways to fight xenophobia and neofascism."
While critics say Putin's recent promise to crack down on extremism has allowed a crackdown on all forms of dissent, a number of rights activists argue that such public pledges may be encouraging judges to take tougher action against racist offenders.
'Organized, Group Murders'
Today's verdict has also met with criticism. Human-rights lawyer Olga Tseitlina, who represents the Kacharava family, told RFE/RL's Russian Service that the crime's organizer remains unpunished.
"Only one defendant has been sentenced for murder. The organizer, the ideological mastermind of this crime, is still wanted by the police," Tseitlina says.
"This is part of a tendency. Why would the authorities want to show that organized, group murders exist here? It's easier to say that some teenager got it into his head to kill someone," she adds.
Human-rights campaigners have long accused the authorities of turning a blind eye to rising hate crimes by convicting assailants of hooliganism, a charge that carries lighter sentences.
Veteran human-rights activist Yuly Rybakov also regrets that the other six defendants got away with relatively lenient sentences.
"Once more we're dealing with a case where all the responsibility is shifted to one of the weakest participants selected from a group of obvious criminals," Rybakov says. "Organized groups and those who are behind them remain unpunished or are handed minor sentences."
Russia's Racist Crime Wave
Nonetheless, rights activists hope the verdict will deter further attacks and help curb the surge in racially motivated violence across Russia.
According to Sova, a Russian organization that monitors hate crimes, 37 people have been killed so far this year in racist attacks -- 22 percent more than for the same period last year.
The mounting racist violence is causing deep concern among ethnic minorities in Russia.
The Russian Council of Muftis last week issued a statement calling on Russian authorities to do more to combat racism.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, the council's head, Ravil Gainutdin, said ethnic minorities in Russia are living in fear.
He was speaking after meeting with the mother of Damir Zainullin, a Tatar student who was killed in a racist attack in St. Petersburg in June.
Claire Bigg
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