ID :
148061
Sat, 10/30/2010 - 14:22
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/148061
The shortlink copeid
Neo-Nazi criminals in Russia get harsher prison terms
MOSCOW, October 30 (By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila
Alexandrova) -- Neo-Nazi criminals in Russia are getting harsher sentences
these days, and the police have been more active in fighting the
extremists, analysts say.
The Moscow City Court on Thursday sentenced a 22-year-old former
Moscow student, member of the National-Socialist Society (NSS) Vasily
Krivets to life imprisonment. He was found guilty by the jury of
committing fifteen hate murders. The second convict in the case,
23-year-old Dmitry Ufimtsev, confessed to five killings and was sentenced
to 22 years in a tight security penitentiary.
The court also upheld civil claims filed by the victims' relatives and
ordered the convicts to pay the affected 13.5 million rubles in
compensation.
In St. Petersburg, an investigation is underway into the activities
of a group of 25 suspects who, according to detectives, carried out twelve
attacks on Caucasus-born victims, and also on Asians and Africans. Two are
known to have died at their hands.
The lifetime convict, Vasily Krivets, was known in the nationalist
circles of Moscow by the nickname Tim. He was a leader of a faction of
skinheads who called themselves the White Wolves. Nine members of that
group were sentenced to long terms last February. Among them there were
two juveniles and also the leader of the Wolves - Alexei Dzhavakhishvili.
He eventually got the shortest term - six years, while the rest - 15 years
to 23 years in jail.
It is noteworthy that the sentence to those convicts was pronounced by
judge Eduard Chuvashov, who would be subsequently killed, as investigators
suspect, in retaliation by supporters of the accused.
From October 2007 to May 2008 Krivets killed fifteen citizens of
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia. Of these murders
five were committed jointly with Ufimtsev and other members of the gang.
Krivets and his men used knives, hammers and iron rods. As a rule,
they committed murders near metro stations in Moscow, beating victims and
inflicting multiple stab wounds.
The sentence was read out amid tight security measures: in the hall
there were six crack police on duty, all armed with automatic rifles.
Outside the court building reinforced police patrols were on guard. This
measure had to be taken following calls for violence against the
participants in the trial, placed on several nationalist websites.
Krivets and Ufimtsev were members of the National-Socialist Society,
eliminated by the law enforcement authorities two years ago. Their other
associates are currently standing trial at the Moscow District Military
Court. The members of that organization are charged with 30 murders,
several terrorist attacks in the Moscow Region and other serious crimes,
including an attempt to blow up the Zagorsk Hydro.
Established in 2004, that organization, despite its original intention
to become a legal nationalist party, over three years turned into a gang,
detectives say. As it turned out during the investigation, the leader of
the national-socialist society, Maxim Bazylev (Adolf), picked his future
gang-mates on nationalist websites. In this way he recruited Vasily
Krivets and Dmitry Ufimtsev, who first participated in meetings and placed
stickers, but then became involved in violent attacks. Krivets promptly
became one of the organization's ideologists, while his accomplice
remained an ordinary soldier.
The NSS, according to detectives, observed an iron discipline. It is
known that one member was killed and dismembered by his own gang-mates,
who accused him of stealing cash. By the autumn of 2007 the members of the
NSS actually went into hiding.
As the media have said, this sentence has become one of the very few
cases in which members of a pro-Nazi group have been punished as strictly
as the law requires. As a rule, most defendants in such cases are minors,
at least they still were under age at the time of the offense. And
irrespective of how many fiendish murders they have really committed, or
been proven guilty of, the maximum sentence they can get is ten years. In
this case, however, the defendants were already past the threshold of
adulthood.
In Russia, according to the Interior Ministry's department for
resistance to extremism, there are more than 150 radical groups of
neo-Nazi orientation, the head of the national research institute under
the Russian Interior Ministry, Major-General Sergei Girko said.
According to the official, ever more Nazi groups crop up in Russia
every year. As a result, the number of extremist crimes fuelled with
ethnic, racial or religious hatred is growing.
In particular, he said that over the first half of 2010 there were
recorded 370 such crimes - a 39-percent increase from the same period last
year. In the whole of 2007 the police recorded 356 such crimes, in 2008,
460, and in 2009, 548.
According to the analytical center Sova, which tracks crimes related
to nationalism and xenophobia, in the first half of 2010 at least 167
people fell victim to racist and neo-Nazi violence, and 19 of them died.
In January-June 2009, 52 were killed and 242 injured.
Odd as it may seem, while the Interior Ministry says there has been an
increase in the number of "extremist" crimes, human rights activists
believe their number is falling. Experts explain the conflicting
statements in this way. Since 2008 the police have become much more
willing to register extremist crimes and far more active in prosecuting
neo-Nazis. As a result, the number of recorded crimes is increasing, but
most of them are relatively minor incidents. Moreover, since the
elimination of major group murders of foreigners have been far rarer,
analysts said.
An expert at the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, Semyon Charny, is
quoted by the Russian Service of the BBC as saying that in the autumn of
2008 the Interior Ministry created a special department for fighting
extremism.
"Before, extremism was one of the many duties of the very same police
staff and investigators who had no end of things to attend - from murders
to minor abuse. Now, inside the Interior Ministry there is a group of
people who have realized that their careers, promotions and awards depend
on how well they crack down on extremism," the expert said.
The deputy director of the analytical center Sova, Galina
Kozhevnikova, says that the center's experts still register more ethnic
hatred-related crimes than the Interior Ministry, but at the same time she
remarks that police are now more willing to recognize and investigate such
crimes.
"This is a political signal to society and a signal from the law
enforcement bodies. It is unmistakable evidence of changing attitudes
towards such crimes," Kozhevnikova said.
Alexandrova) -- Neo-Nazi criminals in Russia are getting harsher sentences
these days, and the police have been more active in fighting the
extremists, analysts say.
The Moscow City Court on Thursday sentenced a 22-year-old former
Moscow student, member of the National-Socialist Society (NSS) Vasily
Krivets to life imprisonment. He was found guilty by the jury of
committing fifteen hate murders. The second convict in the case,
23-year-old Dmitry Ufimtsev, confessed to five killings and was sentenced
to 22 years in a tight security penitentiary.
The court also upheld civil claims filed by the victims' relatives and
ordered the convicts to pay the affected 13.5 million rubles in
compensation.
In St. Petersburg, an investigation is underway into the activities
of a group of 25 suspects who, according to detectives, carried out twelve
attacks on Caucasus-born victims, and also on Asians and Africans. Two are
known to have died at their hands.
The lifetime convict, Vasily Krivets, was known in the nationalist
circles of Moscow by the nickname Tim. He was a leader of a faction of
skinheads who called themselves the White Wolves. Nine members of that
group were sentenced to long terms last February. Among them there were
two juveniles and also the leader of the Wolves - Alexei Dzhavakhishvili.
He eventually got the shortest term - six years, while the rest - 15 years
to 23 years in jail.
It is noteworthy that the sentence to those convicts was pronounced by
judge Eduard Chuvashov, who would be subsequently killed, as investigators
suspect, in retaliation by supporters of the accused.
From October 2007 to May 2008 Krivets killed fifteen citizens of
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia. Of these murders
five were committed jointly with Ufimtsev and other members of the gang.
Krivets and his men used knives, hammers and iron rods. As a rule,
they committed murders near metro stations in Moscow, beating victims and
inflicting multiple stab wounds.
The sentence was read out amid tight security measures: in the hall
there were six crack police on duty, all armed with automatic rifles.
Outside the court building reinforced police patrols were on guard. This
measure had to be taken following calls for violence against the
participants in the trial, placed on several nationalist websites.
Krivets and Ufimtsev were members of the National-Socialist Society,
eliminated by the law enforcement authorities two years ago. Their other
associates are currently standing trial at the Moscow District Military
Court. The members of that organization are charged with 30 murders,
several terrorist attacks in the Moscow Region and other serious crimes,
including an attempt to blow up the Zagorsk Hydro.
Established in 2004, that organization, despite its original intention
to become a legal nationalist party, over three years turned into a gang,
detectives say. As it turned out during the investigation, the leader of
the national-socialist society, Maxim Bazylev (Adolf), picked his future
gang-mates on nationalist websites. In this way he recruited Vasily
Krivets and Dmitry Ufimtsev, who first participated in meetings and placed
stickers, but then became involved in violent attacks. Krivets promptly
became one of the organization's ideologists, while his accomplice
remained an ordinary soldier.
The NSS, according to detectives, observed an iron discipline. It is
known that one member was killed and dismembered by his own gang-mates,
who accused him of stealing cash. By the autumn of 2007 the members of the
NSS actually went into hiding.
As the media have said, this sentence has become one of the very few
cases in which members of a pro-Nazi group have been punished as strictly
as the law requires. As a rule, most defendants in such cases are minors,
at least they still were under age at the time of the offense. And
irrespective of how many fiendish murders they have really committed, or
been proven guilty of, the maximum sentence they can get is ten years. In
this case, however, the defendants were already past the threshold of
adulthood.
In Russia, according to the Interior Ministry's department for
resistance to extremism, there are more than 150 radical groups of
neo-Nazi orientation, the head of the national research institute under
the Russian Interior Ministry, Major-General Sergei Girko said.
According to the official, ever more Nazi groups crop up in Russia
every year. As a result, the number of extremist crimes fuelled with
ethnic, racial or religious hatred is growing.
In particular, he said that over the first half of 2010 there were
recorded 370 such crimes - a 39-percent increase from the same period last
year. In the whole of 2007 the police recorded 356 such crimes, in 2008,
460, and in 2009, 548.
According to the analytical center Sova, which tracks crimes related
to nationalism and xenophobia, in the first half of 2010 at least 167
people fell victim to racist and neo-Nazi violence, and 19 of them died.
In January-June 2009, 52 were killed and 242 injured.
Odd as it may seem, while the Interior Ministry says there has been an
increase in the number of "extremist" crimes, human rights activists
believe their number is falling. Experts explain the conflicting
statements in this way. Since 2008 the police have become much more
willing to register extremist crimes and far more active in prosecuting
neo-Nazis. As a result, the number of recorded crimes is increasing, but
most of them are relatively minor incidents. Moreover, since the
elimination of major group murders of foreigners have been far rarer,
analysts said.
An expert at the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, Semyon Charny, is
quoted by the Russian Service of the BBC as saying that in the autumn of
2008 the Interior Ministry created a special department for fighting
extremism.
"Before, extremism was one of the many duties of the very same police
staff and investigators who had no end of things to attend - from murders
to minor abuse. Now, inside the Interior Ministry there is a group of
people who have realized that their careers, promotions and awards depend
on how well they crack down on extremism," the expert said.
The deputy director of the analytical center Sova, Galina
Kozhevnikova, says that the center's experts still register more ethnic
hatred-related crimes than the Interior Ministry, but at the same time she
remarks that police are now more willing to recognize and investigate such
crimes.
"This is a political signal to society and a signal from the law
enforcement bodies. It is unmistakable evidence of changing attitudes
towards such crimes," Kozhevnikova said.
