MOSCOW. Nov 16 (Interfax) - Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov said he believes that the punishment for terrorist organizations' recruiters should be more severe than for persons committing a terror attack directly and believes it is possible to impose the death penalty on recruiters.
"Recruiters should receive more severe punishment than a terrorist who detonated a clockwork fuse or took hostages or committed an act of sabotage," Kadyrov said on his Instagram page, commenting on the State Duma's passage in the first reading of a bill envisaging tougher penalties for recruitment to terrorist organizations.
Crimes committed by recruiters and terrorists could be made equal, he said.
"The person who was recruited and ordered to commit acts, which resulted in dozens and hundreds of victims, would have never committed them, if those fiends had not dinned in their ears, had not brainwashed them. A recruiter is akin to a person who poisons a spring at its source," the head of Chechnya said.
"Therefore I not only support tougher penalties, but also stand in favor of the most stringent measures against recruiters. A recruiter could be sentenced to execution by a firing squad, because he, unlike a suicide bomber, wants to live rather than rush to his death," Kadyrov said.
At the same time, the Chechen head clarified that he was expressing his personal opinion.
"I am well aware that a moratorium on the death penalty is in effect in Russia, but I'm expressing my personal opinion in light of the scale of this threat," he said.
The State Duma adopted a bill on tougher penalties for joining terrorist organizations in the first reading at a session on Thursday.
The punishment for this crime is currently from five to ten years of imprisonment, while the current bill envisages punishment of from 15 to twenty years of imprisonment. Adalbi Shkhagoshev, the United Russia faction's first deputy head, sponsored the bill.