{"id":5605,"date":"2021-12-08T12:23:30","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T12:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/russias-supreme-court-annuls-sentences-for-two-convicted-in-murders-of-lawyer-journalist.html"},"modified":"2021-12-08T12:23:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T12:23:30","slug":"russias-supreme-court-annuls-sentences-for-two-convicted-in-murders-of-lawyer-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/russias-supreme-court-annuls-sentences-for-two-convicted-in-murders-of-lawyer-journalist.html","title":{"rendered":"Russia’s Supreme Court Annuls Sentences For Two Convicted In Murders Of Lawyer, Journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nikita

MOSCOW — Russia’s Supreme Court has annulled the sentences of two former neo-Nazi activists convicted of involvement in the killing of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in 2009.<\/p>\n

A lawyer of Baburova’s family, Pyotr Zaikin, told the Novaya gazeta newspaper on December 8 that the Supreme Court sent the case to a cassation entity, meaning a retrial is extremely doubtful.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court decision comes after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in February that the 2011 trial of Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis, former members of the neo-Nazi group called Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists (BORN), was not fair and that the case must be revised.<\/p>\n

Markelov and Baburova, who were known for crusading against ultranationalist violence, were shot dead in broad daylight near the Kremlin in 2009.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Tikhonov was found guilty of murdering Markelov and Baburova and sentenced to life in prison. Khasis was handed an 18-year prison term for assisting Tikhonov.<\/p>\n

Markelov had represented investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006, as well as civilians in the North Caucasus region of Chechnya who were abused by Russian troops.<\/p>\n

The killings sparked accusations that the Kremlin was not doing enough to hunt down the attackers of activists and journalists at the time.<\/p>\n

With reporting by Novaya gazeta <\/p>\n