MOSCOW, June 8 (RAPSI, Alexei Afonsky) – Russian nationalist Ilya Goryachev is the leader and ideologue of "militant organization of Russian nationalists" known as BORN, according to Nikita Tikhonov, a member of the organization who was sentenced to life in prison for double homicide, RAPSI reported from the Moscow City Court on Monday.

“I know Ilya Goryachev as the organizer, leader and ideologue of BORN. We met in 2002, when we both studied at the history department. We had the same interests; I respected Goryachev. We both held nationalist views. Later we decided to publish a moderately nationalist magazine, Russian Image, the name proposed by Goryachev,” Tikhonov said in response to a prosecutor’s question about how they met.

On the first day of the trial, the prosecutor read out an indictment and the list of charges brought against Goryachev, which included creating and controlling a criminal group that attacked people, masterminding five murders, participating in premeditated racial murders by a group of individuals, as well as the illegal acquisition and possession of explosives.

The prosecutor said Goryachev never committed the crimes single-handedly but controlled his criminal group remotely, sometimes far from the site of a crime.

Goryachev pleaded not guilty to the four charges brought against him.

According to investigators, nationalists Ilya Goryachev and Nikita Tikhonov created the Military Organization of Russian Nationalists (BORN) in Moscow in mid-2008.

Members of BORN have been charged with racketeering, illegal weapons trafficking and several counts of homicide, including the deaths of federal judge Eduard Chuvashov, lawyer Stanislav Markelov, and several leaders of Russian anti-Nazi movements.

Markelov was killed in Moscow in January 2009. Investigators believe he was murdered for his active participation in an anti-Nazi movement.

Chuvashov was shot and killed in the stairwell of his Moscow apartment building in 2010. During his career with the Moscow City Court, he reviewed over 20 high-profile criminal cases, some of which involved racially motivated murder.

Goryachev was placed on the international wanted list and in November 2013 extradited from Serbia.

Tikhonov, who is believed to be one of the group’s leaders, was convicted and sentenced in May 2011 to life in prison for the murder of Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova.

Tikhonov got 18 extra years in prison last September for killing Chuvashov.

His accomplice, Yevgenia Khasis, was given 18 years behind bars.

In April of this year, the Moscow Region Court sentenced two other BORN members to life behind bars and another person to 24 years in prison.