MOSCOW, August 9. /TASS/. The Moscow Regional Court sentenced to life on Thursday four members of the so-called GTA gang on charges of murdering drivers on roads in Moscow, the Moscow and Kaluga Regions in 2012-2014, a TASS correspondent reported.

Khazratkhon Dodokhonov, Sherdzhon Kodirov, Anvar Ulugmuradov and Umar Khasanov are charged with killing 17 people and two attempted murders, as well as banditry, robbery, the illegal production and storage of arms and the theft of documents.

The fifth defendant, Zafardzhon Gulyamov, was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

On August 1, the court started announcing the verdict with the recognition of the proof of the criminal charges pressed against the defendants.

The court found that they had created a stable and tightly-knit armed gang. All the perpetrators had undergone special training for cynical armed assaults on citizens. They realized that that they were members of a gang with a strict hierarchy, the judge noted.

The defendants confessed to committing the crimes at the court hearings, but pled not guilty to the killings.

"On several counts, Dodokhonov, Kodirov, Ulugmuradov and Khasanov are sentenced to life imprisonment in a high-security penal colony," Judge Nadezhda Valikova said. Gulyamov will spend 20 years behind bars in a maximum security penal colony.

The court satisfied lawsuits against Khasanov, Dodokhonov and Kodirov ordering them to pay more than 1.5 million rubles ($22,700), including legal costs.

Initially, charges were brought against nine members of the GTA gang, which took its name after a computer game called Grand Theft Auto. Three of them were killed and another one died in hospital after a shootout during a trial in the Moscow Regional Court, when they seized weapons from security guards and wounded a National Guard member.

According to the Russian Investigative Committee, in March 2012 Ibaidullo Subkhanov set up the armed gang to carry out attacks against citizens. The group involved at least 15 nationals from Central Asian countries. Subkhanov was killed in November 2014 when he put up armed resistance.