A Moscow court on Thursday sentenced two more men convicted of plotting to murder a Russian regional governor almost ten years ago.
The governor of the Magadan Region in Russia's Far East Valentin Tsvetkov was shot dead before his wife as he exited his representative office in Moscow in October 2002. At the time, President Vladimir Putin described the murder as a "crime against the state."
Vladimir Golban, 50, was given a 15-year-long sentence for Tsvetkov’s murder, but in conjunction with sentences for other crimes he had committed his prison term adds up to life in a high-security facility.
Sergei Filippenko, 42, received an eight-year sentence starting January 2011, when he was detained.
“Reforming these convicts is possible only through isolation from society,” a judge at the Moscow City Court said during sentencing.
Four other people were convicted last year of participating in the killing and sentenced to various prison terms. The Supreme Court subsequently reduced some of the sentences.
The sentences by the Moscow City Court ranged from 13.5 years for Masis Akhunts, 17 years for Alexander Zakharov, and 19 years for Martin Babakesyan and Artur Anisimov.
Babakesyan was extradited from Spain in January 2008 for organizing the killing, and Zakharov, who carried out the murder, was extradited from Spain in March 2007.
The main leads in the investigation were Magadan's gold mining industry, which the late governor had made moves to streamline, and also on the allocation of fishing quotas and the use of federal funds allocated to supply the region with fuel and other energy resources for the winter.
