A remote-controlled bomb was detonated at the Kotlyakovskoye Cemetery in November 1996, as veterans of the Soviet-era Afghan war gathered to commemorate the assassination two years earlier of their association's leader, Mikhail Likhodei. About 30 people were injured in the explosion.
The Moscow City Court sentenced Andrei Anokhin, a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, after finding him guilty on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Investigators linked the act to the commercial activities of the group, known as the Russian Afghan War Invalids' Fund, and to its alleged misuse of allocations for soldiers disabled during their service in the 1979-89 war.
According to the court, an investigation produced conclusive evidence he and co-defendant Mikhail Smurov made the explosive device and detonated it, and that each was paid $50,000 under a contract with Colonel Valery Radchikov, who had replaced Likhodei at the helm of the Afghan war invalids' fund.
A Moscow district court martial acquitted the three men in January 2000, but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict ten months later, ordering a retrial. Proceedings against Radchikov were dropped after his death in an accident in 2001. Smurov, convicted in May 2003, received a 14-year jail term.
Anokhin denied any involvement in staging the blast. He said there was a conspiracy behind the trial, and that investigators had used torture and psychotropic drugs to extract confessions from him.
