CHELYABINSK. Dec 28 (Interfax) - The Chelyabinsk region's court has handed down a sentence to four local residents charged with committing extremist crimes and murder, the press service for the Russian Investigative Committee's Investigations Directorate for the region said.
Two of the men received 18 and 17.5 years in a high-security colony, respectively. The third man was sentenced to four years in a general-security colony and the fourth received suspended sentence of 2.5 years.
According to the investigators, the men created a group of the extremist organization Misanthropic Division (banned in Russia) in 2015-2017. They desecrated Great Patriotic War monuments and posted photos of what they did on the Internet. The men produced a homemade explosive device, which they set off for demonstration purposes, also posting a video on the Internet.
In August 2016, two of the men inflicted numerous stab wounds on a homeless man, killing him, near a gardening community in the Sovetsky district of Chelyabinsk.
Depending on the degree of involvement, the men were found guilty of crimes enshrined by the articles of the Russian Criminal Code dealing with the creation of an extremist organization, financing extremist activities, illegal production of explosive substances, vandalism, and murder.