MOSCOW, October 18 - RAPSI. Bailiffs have found over 17,000 firearms on individuals entering courtrooms in the first nine months of this year, which is one-third more than during the same period last year, Federal Bailiffs Service head Artur Parfyonchikov said on Thursday.

In his address to the Civic Chamber, he said bailiffs have foiled attempts to take "about 245,000 items of ammunition, over 16,500 gas and non-lethal weapons, and over 1,700 electrical shock apparatus" into courtrooms.

A non-lethal weapons is an informal term for a self-defense weapon that, using gun powder, fires rubber bullets. A gas weapon is one that is designed to emit a physically dangerous or highly irritating type of gas, such as aerosol.

Bailiffs have also thwarted 23 attempts to carry drugs and two attempts to carry explosives into courtrooms, Parfyonchikov noted.

A high profile incident involving weapons in a courtroom occurred in Tambov. In June, Andrei Lyashkov, the former deputy head of the Federal Tax Service's IT Department who had been charged with fraud, stabbed the judge in the stomach and the hand, and wounded another judge.

Both victims were taken to a hospital. Lyashkov was prosecuted for attempting to kill a judge, which is punishable with up to a life sentence. Lyashkov reportedly carried the knife into the courtroom in an umbrella several days before the crime.

The bailiff who failed to find the knife was charged with negligence on the job.