Two men jailed in connection with an attack on the Nevsky Express train in August 2007 will take their appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, the lawyer of one of the men told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia's Supreme Court upheld the sentences given to Salambek Dzakhkiyev and Maksharip Khidriyev, both residents of the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. The men were convicted on terrorism charges relating to the illicit trafficking of explosives and sentenced to 10 and four years in prison, respectively.
A video conference with Dzakhkiyev was organized as part of the hearing. He asked the court to cancel the sentence and end the criminal investigation. He made an emotional plea that he was innocent and had been pressurized during the trial.
"I was driven to the brink of madness and beaten every day," he said.
Dzakhkiyev's lawyers provided documents showing he tried to commit suicide twice while in custody, which they said proved he was being pressurized.
On August 13, 2007, the Nevsky Express passenger train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg derailed after a bomb explosion. Thirty people were injured and railway traffic was suspended in both directions for a few days.
Terrorist attacks are relatively frequent in the restive and economically deprived North Caucasus, where as many as 12 people died in a double bombing on Wednesday, but rare in the rest of Russia.
However, the Nevsky Express was hit again in late November 2009, when 27 passengers were killed and more than 90 injured after a bomb exploded on the tracks, killing 27 and injuring more than 90. President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that all the people behind that attack had been eliminated.
Militants from the North Caucasus are also believed to have been behind the two deadly blasts on the Moscow metro on Monday, killing 39 and injuring dozens more.
MOSCOW, March 31 (RIA Novosti)
