Russia jails fan killer for 20-year
MOSCOW (AFP) – A Moscow court handed down a 20-year sentence Friday to a young Russian Muslim for the murder of a football supporter that sparked unprecedented racist riots outside the Kremlin walls.
A Moscow court jury had earlier found 27-year-old Aslan Cherkesov guilty of shooting dead Spartak Moscow fan club member Yegor Sviridov after coming out of a bar with a group of friends on December 6 last year.
Cherkesov’s five friends received a sentence of at least five years each and were led out of court to jeers from a group of black jacket-clad football supporters who packed the room to hear the politically charged end to the case.
The prosecution expressed satisfaction after initially asking for a 23-year sentence, while the defence vowed to lodge an appeal.
“I do not think of this punishment as excessively cruel,” widow Yana Falaleyeva told Russian news agencies.
The case earned almost no attention until the tight fan base of Spartak — the country’s most successful and arguably most popular team — began spreading news of five of the six suspects’ release.
Accompanying allegations that the group was freed under pressure from a powerful Muslim gang sparked a huge nationalist rally near Red Square that degenerated into mob violence whose footage spread across the world.
Several Muslims who happened to be on the square at the time were hospitalised after being attacked by gangs of men in balaclavas who set off flares against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s onion domes.
The incident highlighted the ethnic rifts in Russian society and underscored the security dilemma facing officials after their successful campaign to bring the 2018 World Cup to Eastern Europe for the first time.
It also prompted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — a former KGB chief with a strong nationalist support base — to hold a tough-talking meeting with fans in which he warned them about the dangers of letting racist groups enter their ranks.
But Russian football — much like its counterpart in England in the 1970s and Italy in more recent times — has developed a reputation for supporter “firms” with the hallmarks of far-right organisations.
And Putin himself courted controversy a few weeks later when he paid a televised visit to Sviridov’s gravesite for a ceremony attended by prominent nationalists.
Putin has since announced plans to return to the Kremlin next year for a six-year term that will see Russia host world fans not only of the football extravaganza but also the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
The authorities hope the sentencing will help heal a racial wound in Moscow that festers from mistrust between ethnic Russian and the large number of migrants that come to the city from poorer southern regions looking for work.
Cherkesov himself was born in Dagestan — a Caspian Sea region in which organised crime and militancy result in almost daily police casualties and attacks against prominent local officials.
The Moscow police had the court building under tight protection Friday while the defendents’ supporters and family traded insults with a small group of Spartak fans outside.
Several relatives of Cherkesov’s convicted friends said the court had given them especially severe sentences because their case had taken on broader political dimensions with interest from Putin himself.
“Our innocent children are sitting there,” the mother of Khasan Ibragimov said. “My son went into that cafe for 30 minutes. How he could have conspired to kill anyone?”
