MOSCOW, June 28 (RIA Novosti, Alexey Eremenko) – A Moscow court arrested two alleged neo-Nazi activists accused of a killing spree that took the lives of a prominent judge, an anti-fascist leader and, possibly, many other opponents of the far right ideology.
Vyacheslav Isayev and Maxim “Baklazhan” (Eggplant) Baklagin face life sentence on charges of hate murder, attacking a judge and illegally obtaining firearms, the Investigative Committee reported on its website late Thursday.
The Basmanny district court sanctioned arrest for both suspects until mid-August. No date for the trial was set.
Baklagin, who was on a federal wanted list, was apprehended along with Isayev by a special police task force in an apartment full of firearms in Vladimir region this week, offering armed resistance to arrest.
The main charge against Baklagin and Isayev is the 2010 killing of Eduard Chuvashov, a Moscow City Court judge who jailed members of the White Wolves skinhead gang for multiple murders.
The actual perpetrator of the killing, Alexei Korshunov, a former officer of the Russian army’s special forces, died in Ukraine in October when jogging with a hand grenade, which exploded on him.
Isayev and Baklagin helped the late killer track the judge to shoot him, investigators say.
In 2009, the trio murdered in similar fashion Ivan Khutorsky, a champion of Russia’s burgeoning anti-fascist movement, known for its violent underground clashes with the neo-Nazis, the committee said.
Khutorsky, a mixed martial arts practitioner nicknamed “Bonebreaker,” was shot dead in the lobby of his apartment house in Moscow.
Isayev and Baklagin are also suspected of other hate crimes, including murders of anti-fascist and charity activist Ivan Dzhaparidze in and Dagestani-born Muay Thai world champion Muslim Abdullayev, both in 2009, RBC Daily news website said.
The duo had close ties to Nikita Tikhonov, a man sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for killing lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in Moscow, also in revenge for Markelov’s anti-fascist activity, the report said.