A court in the Moscow region sentenced six of Tesak's associates to terms of up to 15 years in prison in the case of the murder of migrants in 2003

The Sergiev Posad City Court sentenced six associates of neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich (Tesak) to 15 years of maximum security in the case of two double murders of migrants in the early 2000s. This sentence was handed down by Judge Liliya Baranova, lawyer Igor Popovsky, who defends the accused Andrei Kayl, told Mediazona.

Semyon Tokmakov and Andrey Kyle received 15 years in prison, Alexey Gudilin and Pavel Khrulev - 13 years, Maxim Khotulev - 10 years, and Alexander Lysenkov - 8 years. All of them must serve their sentences in a maximum security colony.

The case was heard by a jury. The assessors unanimously found all the defendants guilty, but decided that Khotulev and Lysenkov deserved leniency. During the discussion of the consequences of the verdict, the state prosecutor asked for 19.5 years for Kaylya, 17 for Tokmakov, 16 for Gudilin and Khruleva, and 13 for Lysenkova and Khotuleva.

The neo-Nazis were charged with two double murders, committed as part of a group of people, with particular cruelty and motivated by national hatred (points “a”, “e”, “g”, “l” of Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code). We are talking about murders committed in 2003.

According to the prosecution, the main motive for the murders is Tesak’s attempt to unite the neo-Nazi organization created by Semyon Tokmakov, the National People’s Party (NPP). When conflicts began to develop between active members of the NNP, Tesak suggested that differences between skinheads would disappear if they were “tied in blood.”

The first episode dates back to September 2003. Then Martsinkevich, Tokmakov, Keil and others hired two visitors to do construction work at Tesak’s dacha in the Smolensk region. There they forced the workers to take sleeping pills, then killed one of them with an ax blow, and strangled the second. Subsequently, after Tesak’s arrest, the skeletal remains of workers were discovered at the site.

Neo-Nazis, according to the state prosecution, committed another double murder three months later at an abandoned camp site in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region. There they shot one migrant and strangled another; a video of the process was posted on the Internet, and the severed heads of the men were thrown into the courtyards of the Moscow district of Golyanovo.

The accusation is based on the testimony of Martsinkevich himself, which he gave shortly before his death. The defendants and their lawyers insisted during the trial that Tesak incriminated himself and them under torture. They themselves had also previously given confessions, but retracted them in court.

In September 2020, during a transfer from Krasnoyarsk to Moscow, Martsinkevich was found dead in a pre-trial detention center. The investigation believes that he committed suicide.