Russia: life imprisonment for a defendant of the attacks of the Moscow metro of 2010

A Russian military court on Friday sentenced the only living organizer of two deadly Moscow metro bombings in 2010 to life in prison that left 39 people dead and nearly 90 injured.

On March 29, 2010, two female suicide bombers from the Russian republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus detonated their explosive belts in two busy metro stations in the center of the Russian capital.

In the following years, the Russian security services had eliminated several members of the clandestine Islamist group which claimed responsibility for this attack, and which was part of the organization “Emirate of the Caucasus”, at the origin of several other attacks.

The man sentenced on Friday, Magomed Nurov, 45, was arrested in 2019 in Dagestan. Considered the only survivor of the group that carried out the attacks, he denies his guilt.

“He did not plead guilty, saying he acted under pressure”

According to investigators, he acted as an intermediary, leading the members of the terrorist group and helping them hide from the police.

“He did not plead guilty, saying he acted under pressure” from other members of the terrorist cell, prosecutor Natalia Trochkina told the press.

Handcuffed, dressed entirely in black and detained inside a glass cage, Magomed Nurov responded with animosity to journalists’ questions before the verdict, according to an AFP correspondent on the spot.

“Write a written request and we will respond to you. If you provoke me, it will be on your conscience,” he said.

He was also ordered to pay 17 million rubles (195,000 euros) in compensation to the Moscow metro.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, Russia was hit by a series of terrorist attacks that left dozens dead, following the end of the war in Chechnya between Russian forces and an independence movement that became radicalized before pledging allegiance to the jihadist organization Islamic State.

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