Siberian court sentences five for racial attacks

A Siberian court on Monday convicted five men in connection with racial killings of immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus, and sentenced them to 8 to 9 years in jail, a judge said.

The five were convicted of inciting ethnic hatred with violence in connection with the three lethal attacks in 2003-2004, said Alexander Okhrimenko, a federal judge in Surgut, about 2,200 kilometers (1,350 miles) east of Moscow. One was sentenced to a juvenile correctional camp, Okhrimenko told The AP.

Details of the accusations against the men were not available from the court.

Russian news reports identified the five as members of a skinhead gang. The Interfax news agency said three of the defendants beat a man of non-Slavic appearance to death in December 2003. In February 2004, two men fatally stabbed a Tajik person and later that month, four members of the group beat another man from Central Asia to death.