Five men who took part in last year’s airport storming in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan were handed varying jail sentences, court authorities said Friday.
Hundreds of people descended on Dagestan’s Makhachkala International Airport in late October as they searched for Israeli citizens rumored to be onboard a flight arriving from Tel Aviv. The mob paralyzed the airport and led the several law enforcement officers being injured.
Nearly 140 of the estimated 1,500 rioters were detained and their trials moved to the neighboring Stavropol and Krasnodar regions given the “sensitivity” of the cases, authorities said.
The Krasnodar region’s Armavir City Court found all five men standing trial on Friday guilty of rioting and handed them varying prison sentences, with the longest being nine years in a medium-security facility. One of the men was also convicted of using violence against a police officer.
President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials claimed at the time that Ukraine and the West were behind calls to storm the Dagestan airport. Kyiv said the wave of violence was a symptom of “deep-seated anti-semitism” in Russia.
The airport riot took place as Israel ramped up its devastating offensive on Gaza that was launched after Hamas militant fighters attacked the country on Oct. 7.
In November, a Dagestan court sentenced 15 people to between two and 10 days in prison for their involvement in the riot.
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