MOSCOW, August 6 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on Friday sentenced Sergey Zakharov, the leader of a Moscow gang accused of committing murders in the 1990s, to 24 years and 11 months to high-security penal colony as prosecutors requested, the court’s press service told RAPSI.

Earlier, jurors found the defendant guilty of two counts of arms trafficking, murder of two people for personal gain by an organized group. 

The jury found that in the 1990s Zakharov organized and led an armed gang. In September 1995, he ordered the murder of a member of another Moscow criminal group and paid killers $2,500 for this crime. Moreover, he gave them $12,000 for killing one of the members of his gang.

However, jurors acquitted him of kidnapping, money extortion and one more murder.