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Defense appeals convictions for Maskhadov accomplices

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MOSCOW, March 19 (RIA Novosti) - The defense team for four men convicted on charges of involvement in rebel attacks orchestrated by the notorious Chechen warlord Aslan Maskhadov has appealed with Russia's Supreme Court, court officials said Sunday.

The lawyers for Vakhit Murdashev, Viskhan Khajimuradov, Iles Iriskhanov and Iskandarbek Yusupov insist that a Chechen court's decision to sentence the men to prison terms between five-and-a-half and 15 years should be overturned, calling it "illegitimate and unfounded."

The appeal hearing is set for March 22.

Russian law-enforcement authorities accused Maskhadov, the rebellious region's president in 1996-2000, for masterminding a number of high-profile terrorist attacks, including a hostage-taking raid on a Moscow theater in 2002 and a school siege in the southern town of Beslan in 2004.

One of Russia's most wanted men, with a $10 million bounty on his head, Maskhadov was trapped by federal forces outside the Chechen capital last March and killed after he refused to surrender.

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