YEKATERINBURG, March 19 (Itar-Tass) – The Sverdlovsk region court on Tuesday passed a guilty verdict in the case over mass disturbances in the village of Sagra, Sverdlovsk region, in the summer of 2011.
Of the 23 persons in the prisoner's dock, six were given real jail terms. Ivan Lebedev as sentenced to six years in a maximum security prison, Kakhaver Chichua to 4 years and 1 month in a maximum security prison, Shota Katamadze, Artyom Rabadanov and Vyacheslav Lebedev were sentenced to four years in a general regime penitentiary each, and Shokhin Zaripov was sentenced to 1 year and 8 months in prison.
Other defendants were given three to four-year suspended sentences.
None of the defendants pleaded guilty. Some claimed they had had no intention to get involved in mass disturbances while other said they had heard shooting before they arrived to the point of destination and decided to return. All the defendants said there was no corpus delicti in their actions and asked the court to acquit them, the court's press service said earlier.
According to the investigators, Ivan Lebedev and Kakhaber Chichua set up a gang comprising eight members in early 2011. It included Shota Katamadze, Artyom Rabadanov, Magomed Bekov, Vitaly Slatimov, Kardash Fatakhov and Faig Musaiyev.
"In the summer, two residents of the Sagra settlement – Valentina and Vyacheslav Lebedev, after quarrelling with local residents who had accused them of theft, phoned their relative Ivan Lebedev, who was in prison and asked him to stage mass disturbances in the village for 30,000 roubles, an official at the regional department of the Prosecutor General's Office said.
"Lebedev instructed Shota Katamadze, together with other gang members, to work out a plan of attack. The gang then phoned their acquaintances and rounded up at least 30 people.
"Having armed themselves with a sawn-off shotgun, non-lethal pistols, baseball bats, wooden sticks, metal rods and other hard objects, they came in 13 cars to Sagra and staged mass disturbances at the entrance to Sagra overnight to July 1, 2011. A 28-year-old resident of Yekaterinburg was killed in the shooting. The defendants threatened physical violence on injured parties, and fired several shots. The attackers withdrew as they heard a police detail was on their way to the village," the prosecutor for the state said at the trial.
Searches at defendants' apartments found air pistols, nunchucks, baseball bats, batons, brass knuckles, an axe, and assault rifle and machine gun ammunition.
The proceedings against one participant in the mass disturbance made a separate case. He was found insane and the investigators asked the court to send him for compulsory treatment.
More than 200 persons were questioned within the case, and 83 expert examinations were carried out. The review of the case lasted for about eight months.
On February 12, the Verkhnyaya Pyshma court in the Sverdlovsk region passed guilty verdicts for police officers Sergei Zinovyev and Vadim Zainiyev, accused of negligence that resulted in the Sagra fight. Zinovyev was sentenced to three years and two months in prison and Zainiyev to ten months of community work. Ten percent of Zainiyev's salary will be deducted to the budget. Also, both were banned from taking jobs at government bodies for three years, the Court's press service told Tass.