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| Russian synagogue attacker's victims appeal sentence
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ALEXANDER KOPTSEV
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The victims of a Russian man sentenced to 13 years in prison for a knife-wielding rampage through a Moscow synagogue that left eight people hurt have appealed against the verdict, one of their lawyers said Friday.
"We have appealed to the Supreme Court," Vladim Klyuvgant told AFP. "We do not agree with the fact that the court (that sentenced Alexander Koptsev on Monday) did not uphold the charge of attempting to incite racial hatred."
Koptsev, 21, was found guilty Monday of attempted murder with ethnic and religious motives, but not guilty of the second charge, and his sentence was three years less than the prosecution had sought.
The incident occurred on the evening of January 11 when Koptsev, an unemployed university drop-out, walked past security guards into a Jewish center housing the synagogue and other facilities in central Moscow, entered one of the building’s hallways and attacked people with a large knife.
A rabbi, three men each aged 18, a security officer and three other staff of the synagogue were hospitalised after the attack, which shocked Muscovites and gave a wake up call to authorities who had been accused by rights activists of dragging their feet on tackling racist crime.
Jewish leaders welcomed the stern prison sentence for Koptsev, but said
they regretted he had not also been convicted on the second charge.
Russia’s chief rabbi, Berl Lazar, said "I am frankly worried by the court’s maniacal resistance to qualifying the crime as incitement to ethnic or religious discord."
In his closing arguments at the trial, the prosecutor said Koptsev had
acted alone and was not part of a skinhead gang, as alleged in initial press reports and by the synagogue.
Following a stormy debate, Russia’s parliament voted in January to draft legislation against extremism to provide tougher sentences for crimes motivated by racial hatred.
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