On 14 June 2011 St. Petersburg City Court convicted the killers of academic and minority rights defender Nikolai Mikhailovich Girenko. Gang leader and organizer of the murder, Aleksei Voevodin, and the person who actually shot Nikolai Girenko, Artem Prokhorenko, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Their accomplices the brothers Andrei and Aleksei Kostarchenkov were sentenced to terms of 8 and 18 years in a maximum security prison.

Nikolai Girenko’s family and the friends of other victims were forced to wait too long for the court’s decision. He was murdered 7 years ago this June.

The victims’ lawyers, Nikolai Girenko’s friends and human rights colleagues are satisfied with the jury’s verdict and the court’s sentence. It is clear to all that the actual killers have been punished. The jury had no doubts about their guilt and unanimously found the murder had been intentional and pre-planned. The motive for the murder was Nikolai Girenko’s professional work on legal cases against neo-fascist groups for incitement of hatred. [Read more]