MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI) – A court in Dagestan has sentenced Islam Batsiyev, a participant in the armed revolt in Chechnya and Dagestan in the 1990s, to 17 years in prison, the Investigative Committee announced on Monday.

According to investigators, Islam Batsiyev participated in the events of the 1990s, when Shamil Basayev, Jordanian national Khattab, Bagaudin Magomedov and other proponents of Wahabbism created outlaw groups to seize power in Chechnya. On an August morning in 1999, they invaded Dagestan. As a result of fighting that began the next day, 90 military personnel, law enforcement officers and civilians were killed, 290 were wounded and thousands fled their villages.

Over 58 militants who took part in the attacks against several towns in the Botlikh and Tsumada regions of Dagestan are still at large.

Shamil Basayev was an active member of the terrorist war waged for the secession of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria from the Russian Federation and hostilities in Chechnya in 1991-2006. He masterminded several large terrorist attacks in Russia and was put on the UN, the US State Department and the EU lists of terrorists. According to Russia’s Federal security service (FSB), Basayev was killed in July 2006 during an explosion of a Kamaz truck that was carrying weapons and munitions.