ST. PETERSBURG, April 19 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – Jury panel found nineteen members of a Neo-Nazi gang guilty of banditry, robbery and murder motivated by racial and national hatred, RAPSI learnt in the St. Petersburg City Court on Thursday.

The case was heard behind closed doors because fourteen defendants were underage at the time of crimes with two of them not even reaching the age of 16 years. Jurors were discussing 258 questions for more than 24 hours. All of the defendants were found guilty.

According to case documents, Alexey Kolesnikov and Denis Parfenov are charged with killing an immigrant from Uzbekistan shortly after their participation in a “Russian march” nationalist rally.

Nineteen persons, fourteen of whom were underage when allegedly committing the aforesaid crimes, are charged on 36 counts including six counts of grievous bodily harm, three counts of banditry, three counts of robbery and setting fire to a St. Peter’s Cathedral alongside murders.

Kolesnikov, Parfenov, Konstantin Gavrilov, Sergey Bondar and Igor Zabaluyev were also found guilty of inducing underage persons into a criminal gang.

The alleged gang leader, an ethnic Arab born in St. Petersburg, changed his name given at birth into a Russian one due to his racist and nationalist beliefs in 2002, and as investigators allege, in 2012, he organized a criminal gang ensnaring his acquaintances including underage school and college students, who shared his beliefs, in order to commit crimes involving violence and violation of national and human dignity of people native to Caucasus and Asia.

Other members of the gang are Maksim Logachev and Denis Knyazkin, who have their cases reviewed separately. Logachev was on the international wanted list for a long time but was finally arrested in Yarsolavl. Knyazkin and two underage accomplices were arrested in 2014 on charges of killing a homeless person.