The Moscow City Court convicted two men Wednesday of terrorism for bombing a shopping mall and hotel in 1999 and sentenced them to long prison terms.
An explosion in an elevator of the Intourist hotel in downtown Moscow injured 11 people in April 1999. The hotel has since been demolished. Four months later, one woman died and 40 people were injured in a blast at the Okhotny Ryad shopping mall next to the Kremlin.
Court spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said Khalid Khuguyev organized the blasts and Magomadzair Gadzhiakayev carried them out. Both were convicted in a closed and secretive trial. Khuguyev was sentenced to 25 years in prison and Gadzhiakayev to 15.
Russian media reported that Khuguyev is a native of Chechnya and a former associate of Shamil Basayev, the former Chechen warlord responsible for numerous acts of terrorism, including the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2003.
Usachyova refused to say when the men were arrested or when the case began, maintaining the veil of secrecy over the investigation.
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