February 21, 2011, 19:51 Society

The killers were convicted, but no motive was found.

The Moscow City Court rendered a verdict in the case of the murder of Magadan Region Governor Valentin Tsvetkov

Ivan Alekseev The Moscow City Court sentenced the organizers of the murder of Magadan governor Valentin Tsvetkov. The four defendants received from 13.5 to 19 years in a maximum security colony. The mastermind of the crime has not yet been found. The motive for the murder, committed almost ten years ago, also remained unknown.

On Monday, the Moscow City Court announced a guilty verdict in the case of the murder of Magadan Region Governor Valentin Tsvetkov , committed in Moscow on October 18, 2002. According to the court decision, Martin Babakekhyan and Artur Anisimov received 19 years in prison, Alexander Zakharov was sentenced to 17 years in prison, and Masis Akhunts was sentenced to 13.5 years.

All four defendants will serve their sentences in a maximum security colony .

Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code (murder by an organized group by prior conspiracy) provides for punishment up to life imprisonment. The state prosecution demanded for the defendants from 15 to 25 years in prison.

The defendants themselves never admitted their guilt. Their lawyers have already announced that they will appeal the court's decision.

Last week, the jury found Babakekhyan, Anisimov, Zakharov and Akhunts guilty of murdering Tsvetkov. The jury decided that neither of them deserved leniency.

The assessors agreed that Babakekhyan was involved in organizing the murder that took place early in the morning on Novy Arbat, at the entrance to the representative office of the Magadan Region. According to the materials of the 98-volume criminal case, in the summer of 2002, Babakekhyan attended a meeting with the participation of his distant relative Yuri Chernov and the leader of a gang of killers, Vladimir Golban, nicknamed Moldavan, who discussed the upcoming murder of Tsvetkov. Those who ordered the murder of the governor, who have not yet been identified (and the motive for the murder is also unknown), allocated $100 thousand to organize the crime, $30 thousand of which were to be received by Chernov and Golban, who agreed to find the perpetrators of the murder. The killers Sergei Gordienko and Konstantin Korshunov were going to be paid $15 thousand each. The organizers of the murder spent the remaining $10 thousand on the purchase of weapons, cars and telephones.

After this meeting, the materials of the criminal case say, Martin Babakekhyan involved three accomplices in organizing the crime.

The duties of his business partners Zakharov and Anisimov were to monitor the future victim and “coordinate the actions of the perpetrators.” Babakekhyan’s cousin Akhunts, who worked as a driver for him, was supposed to take one of the participants in the crime, Moldavan gang member Evgeniy Kovalev , who was keeping an eye on the killer Korshunov , away from the scene of the murder .

As a result, only four defendants in the case reached trial.

Kovalev and Gordienko were “removed” shortly after Tsvetkov’s murder. Korshunov, along with several other possible accomplices in the crime, is still wanted.

The four who found themselves in the dock were also accused of an attempt on the life of the deputy head of the Magadan Region representative office in Moscow, Pyotr Shapka, who accompanied Tsvetkov on the day of the murder. However, the jury decided that the killer, having fired a second time, was not trying to kill Shapka: both bullets were intended for Tsvetkov, but the killer hit the governor only once. Moreover, all the defendants were found guilty of two counts of fraud - for 10 and 20 million rubles - committed even before the murder of the governor of the Magadan region, in 2001.