Six sentenced in Astrakhan for recruiting militants for Syria, Egypt, Caucasus
ASTRAKHAN. Sept 22 (Interfax) - A district court in Astrakhan has handed down a verdict on recruiters trying to find people to replenish the illegal armed formations in Syria, Egypt and the North Caucasus, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom.
Six suspects were found guilty of illegally possessing weapons and ammunition, and facilitating terrorist activities, and sentenced to six to seven years in a general prison.
The group was tracked down by the Anti-Extremism Center of the Interior Ministry's Astrakhan Department after a 29 year-old user of a social network, Takhir Dzhaksibekov, wrote on his page that he was born in the "Astrakhan Khanate," said spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee's Astrakhan regional department, Andrei Hegai.
An inquiry into this suspicious entry led to the discovery that Dzhaksibekov had the Muslim name of Abu Khasan and was leader of a group of Astrakhan residents who popularized "world jihad" in 2013, Hegai said.
The suspects' apartments were searched, and extremist literature was found, alongside video appeals by the ideologues of the North Caucasus militants Sayid Buryatsky and Abu Khanif.
It was established in a subsequent investigation that the suspects had been trying to recruit citizen Magomedov into their activities. Magomedov was given videos showing civilian facilities being blown up and soldiers of troops killed in Afghanistan, accompanied by remarks of approval. Magomedov, meanwhile, cooperated with the law enforcement services and used the video cameras provided to him to secretly film the terrorists' activities.
The suspects also said that the infidels must be destroyed and claimed that a terrorist attack was the only worthy way for a Muslim to end his life.
According to investigators, the suspects had been recruiting residents of the region to armed units in Syria, Egypt and the North Caucasus. They pledged to pay $2,000 to each of the recruits fighting on the side of the anti-government forces.
Reports said earlier that the six suspects were detained in 2013.