A Russian man has been sentenced to two and a half years in jail in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia for killing two bodyguards of the territory's former leader Eduard Kokoity in May last year.
The murderer, 35-year-old Albert Tsgoyev, shot the men 16 times.
One of the bodyguards killed in a brawl in a nightclub in the southen Russian city of Vladikavkaz was Kokoity's cousin.
Tsgoyev, himself from Vladikavkaz, did not have a previous criminal record, South Ossetia's Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
Kokoity stepped down in December last year after a disputed presidential election which failed to produce a clear winner.
