ST. PETERSBURG, December 17 - RAPSI. Nationalist and mixed martial artist Vyacheslav Datsik has appealed his five-year sentence for robbery and church arson, his attorney Andrei Fedorkov told RIA Novosti on Monday.

On December 7, the Nevsky District Court handed down the sentence. The state prosecutor had asked the court to sentence Datsik to nine years in prison.

Fedorkov said both the attorneys and his client filed the appeal on Monday, adding that they may be considered in late January.

The court sided in its ruling with an Oslo court that had also previously sentenced Datsik, he said. However, the court failed to consider the date when Datsik was imprisoned in Norway.

The attorney said his client's sentence should be considered as having started from the moment when he was placed in custody in Norway. He also said Datsik was unarmed when the crime was committed, and he thus could not have threatened the lives of the employees of the mobile phone shop that he allegedly robbed.

As a professional MMA fighter, Datsik was widely known as "Red Tarzan." He has pleaded not guilty to the crimes for which he was convicted. His alleged accomplice also pleaded not guilty.

Datsik was arrested in 2007 and accused of stealing mobile phones from shops in St. Petersburg.

Psychiatrists later declared him schizophrenic, absolving him of criminal liability for the robberies. He subsequently escaped from the mental institution where he was being treated.

In September 2010, Datsik was arrested with a loaded gun while seeking asylum in an Oslo immigration office. In late December, a Norwegian court sentenced him to eight months in jail for illegal arms possession. He was deported to Russia for prosecution in March 2011. A psychiatric examination conducted last November found Datsik to be sane.

Datsik is reported to be a member of the Slavic Union Ultra-Nationalist Movement, which is banned in Russia but reportedly has an office in Norway.