MOSCOW, November 19 (RAPSI) – A court in Russia’s Republic of Mordovia has dismissed a petition for parole filed by the 74-year ex-law enforcement officer Pavel Stakhovtsev sentenced to life for creating a gang, attorney Sergey Mukhanov has told RAPSI.

The court has therefore taken the side of prosecutors and administration of a penal colony, where the defendant is serving his sentence, and denied his early release.

According to the defense lawyer, the ruling will be appealed in the republic’s Supreme Court.

Stakhovtsev was convicted and sentenced to shooting death in the early nineties for organizing a gang engaged in robberies and murders. However, the judgment was not executed because of the breakup of the Soviet Union; and the defendant was sentenced to life.

In 2016, the convict filed another parole petition, but it was also dismissed.