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Russian court convicts five more rioters at Dagestan airport

Five men involved in the storming of the airport in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan last year have been sentenced to varying prison terms, court authorities said. said Friday.

In late October, hundreds of people flocked to Makhachkala International Airport in Dagestan to search for Israeli citizens who were rumored to be on board a flight arriving from Tel Aviv. The mob brought the airport to a standstill and resulted in several police officers being injured.

Nearly 140 of the estimated 1,500 rioters were arrested and their Attempts postponed Given the “sensitivity” of the cases, the authorities concluded that extradition should take place in the neighboring regions of Stavropol and Krasnodar.

The Armavir City Court in the Krasnodar region found on Friday that all five men are on trial guilty of rioting and sentenced them to varying prison terms, the longest of which was nine years in a medium-security facility. One of the men was also convicted of using violence against a police officer.

President Vladimir Putin and other Russian politicians claimed at the time that Ukraine and the West were behind the calls to storm Dagestan's airport. Kyiv said the wave of violence was a symptom of “deep-rooted anti-Semitism” in Russia.

The unrest at the airport came as Israel stepped up its devastating offensive on Gaza, launched after Hamas militants attacked the country on October 7.

In November, a Dagestani court sentenced Fifteen people were sentenced to prison terms of between two and ten days for their involvement in the riots.

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