MOSCOW. April 20 (Interfax) - An individual involved in a 2000 attack in Chechnya on the 6th Airborne Company from Pskov, who is already serving a sentence for other crimes, has been given a 23-year term in a penal colony, the press center of the Russian Federal Security Service said.
"Irrefutable evidence proving the role of Russian citizen Makhdi Magomedov, born in 1966 [and] also known as 'Palach', in this crime [the attack on Pskov paratroopers] was collected during work conducted jointly with the Russian Investigative Committee," the press center said.
At the time of the investigation, Magomedov was already serving a 21-year sentence for involvement in an assault on a joint convoy made up of Perm riot police and servicemen of the Vedeno garrison headquarters in Chechnya's Vedeno district in 2000. Thirty-six police officers and seven servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces' Taman division were killed in that attack.
Chechnya's Supreme Court found Magomedov guilty "and gave him a cumulative 23-year sentence, which he will serve in a high-security penal colony," the press center said.
According to the Investigative Committee, in February 2000 Magomedov "took part in the attack on servicemen of the 6th Company of the 104th Regiment of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division in a mountainous and forested area at Height 776.0, near the village of Ulus-Kert in the Shatoi district of Chechnya."
During the exchange of fire, Magomedov "took up a position and started firing his Kalashnikov assault rifle, deliberately targeting the servicemen," the Investigative Committee said.
Eighty-four servicemen were killed and another four were wounded during the armed clash, it said.