A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced the main organizer of the St. Petersburg metro bombing that killed 15 people in 2017 to life in prison, it announced Tuesday, bringing a more than two-year investigation and trial to a close.
The court handed jail sentences between 19 and 28 years to 10 other suspects.
Investigators suspect a 22-year-old Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen, Akbarzhon Dzhalilov, of detonating a homemade explosive in a subway car traveling between two St. Petersburg metro stations on April 3, 2017. Authorities found another undetonated bomb at a third station.
The military district court found the suspects guilty on seven terrorism and weapons charges, St. Petersburg’s court system said in an online statement.
All 10 men and one woman on trial — including the bombing's mastermind Abror Azimov, who received a life sentence — denied their guilt.
Azimov and his brother Akram Azimov, who received a 28-year prison sentence, alleged in 2017 that the Federal Security Service (FSB) held and tortured them in a “secret prison” outside Moscow.
Investigators had said that none of the convicted people were personally acquainted with one another and had used online forms of communication to organize the attack.
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