Sentences of up to eight years in prison were handed down to eight men who stormed an airport in Dagestan’s capital last year
Another eight men convicted of participating in last year’s anti-Jewish riot in the Muslim-majority Dagestan Republic in southern Russia received lengthy prison sentences on Monday.
The ruling, reported on Telegram by the united press service of Krasnodar Region courts, is the latest in a string of criminal cases relating to the unrest, spurred by pro-Palestinian sentiment in the early days of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.
According to the verdict by the Ust-Labinsky District Court, one of the mob’s participants got eight years in prison for rioting and for assaulting officials, while others were sentenced to seven years each.
The convicts will serve their sentences in general regime penal colonies, according to the report, which noted that the verdict has not entered into legal force.
In October 2023, a large mob chanting anti-Semitic slogans broke through the security perimeter of Makhachkala International Airport in the regional capital and ran onto the tarmac. Members of the mob filmed themselves searching the airport terminal and questioning arriving passengers to determine whether they were Jewish.
It was later determined that the rioters had believed rumors on Telegram and social media that a plane arriving from Israel was carrying “Jewish refugees.” The rioters clashed with security guards and police, paralyzed operations at the airport and caused extensive damage to the facility. However, they failed to board any aircraft or injure any passengers.
The Prosecutor General’s Office previously reported that a total of 28 criminal cases against 134 residents of Dagestan were received by the Krasnodar and Stavropol regional courts. The rioters destroyed and damaged airport property worth more than 24 million rubles (just over $237,000), and violated transport and aviation security requirements. Over 20 government officials were injured in clashes.
This month, a court in Stavropol sentenced seven men to between eight and nine years in prison while another local court imposed similar sentences on three more convicts. In August, a court in the city of Armavir sentenced five men to up to nine years in jail for participating in the riots.
Some officials suggested that the riot may have been incited from abroad. A month after the disturbance, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it had been inspired by Western intelligence services from the territory of Ukraine and was part of a broader effort to destabilize the world.
According to the head of the Republic of Dagestan, Sergey Melikov, the violence was sparked by fake news on the Utro Dagestan (‘Dagestan Morning’) Telegram channel, since exposed as a Ukrainian intelligence service project designed to stir ethnic and religious unrest in Russia.
