MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) - A state prosecutor asked the Moscow City Court Monday to hand down a 23-year prison sentence to a Moscow gang leader convicted of a double murder in a case that revived memories of Russia's vicious recent past.
On September 21, the jury unanimously found Andrei Pylev, a leader of the Orekhovo-Medvedkovo gang, guilty of the murder of contract killer Alexander Solonik and his girlfriend, Svetlana Kotova.
The court is expected to hand down the sentence on September 27.
According to investigators, the so-called Orekhovo-Medvedkovo gang was formed in the early 1990s, but later split into two factions as gangsters sought to reap the rewards of Russia's path to capitalization in the era of the "wild, wild east."
In August 2005, the Moscow City Court sentenced 10 gang members to prison terms ranging from eight and a half to 24 years after they had been convicted on 14 counts of premeditated murder in which 18 people were killed, including Solonik. Eight of the defendants pleaded guilty.
Pylev told the court he had lived in Spain since 1993, seldom visited Russia and had never met Solonik.
"I do not understand the charges against me," he said. "I did not personally know either Solonik or the convicted members of the Orekhovo-Medvedkovo gang. I have never heard their names, but I can recognize someone by sight."
Prosecutors accuse Andrei Pylev and his brother Oleg of forming the gang, but the defendant said he seldom met with his brother, and that their last meeting took place in 1999 or 2000.
