Three jailed for life over Moscow bombings

A Russian court today sentenced three people to life in prison for their role in a pair of Moscow underground rail bombings in 2004 that killed nearly 50 people, a court spokeswoman said.

The February and August bombings terrorised the Russian capital and came amid a series terror attacks that culminated in the September 2004 hostage taking at the school in Beslan.

The Moscow City Court gave Murat Shavayev, Maxim Panaryin and Tambii Khubiyev life sentences in a closed door hearing, after convicting them of terrorism, murder, banditry and other charges, spokesman Anna Usacheva said.

Prosecutors charged that Khubiyev and Shavayev took detonators and explosives to Moscow and Khubiyev assembled one of the bombs, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

Panaryin’s precise involvement in the attacks was not immediately clear.

RIA-Novosti said Khubiyev pleaded guilty to all the charges, while Panaryin pleaded guilty to just some and Shavayev denied all of them.

The February 6, 2004, explosion at the Avtozavodskaya station tore through an underground rail carriage, killing 42 people including the attacker.

On August 31, 2004, a female suicide bomber detonated explosives at the Rizhskaya subway station, killing eight and wounding 30.