Russia jails man for 17 years for fighting with IS

[Rasputin]

Russia jails man for 17 years for fighting with IS

AFP
November 3, 2015, 3:55 am

Rostov-on-Don (Russia) (AFP) - A Russian military court on Monday jailed a man for 17 years for allegedly fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria.

Gadzhi Magomedov was sentenced to 17 years in a strict-regime prison camp by the North Caucasus military court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don.

The court ruling said that Magomedov illegally went to Syria and "after undergoing training decided to join in fighting against government troops on the side of armed groups and Islamic State".

The court was told he travelled to Egypt ostensibly to study Islam and then crossed into Syria from Turkey, spending at least two months defending IS positions before returning to Egypt, the Kommersant daily reported.

Magomedov, who comes from the volatile mainly Muslim North Caucasus, underwent training "on the methods and skills of terrorist activity", court spokeswoman Emilia Khmara told reporters outside the court.

Prosecutors had asked for Magomedov to serve 25 years.

Magomedov's sentence took into account a separate offence of taking part in mass disturbances in 2012 in his native Dagestan, when stone-throwing protestors called for police to release suspected militants, the court spokeswoman told TASS news agency.

Magomedov was detained in Egypt in October 2014 and deported to Russia.

Russia last week said it would detain a 19-year-old female philosophy student from Moscow until December 23 on suspicion of joining a terrorist organisation after she travelled to Turkey without telling her family and was picked up in a town bordering Syria.

President Vladimir Putin has cited as a reason for Moscow's bombing campaign in Syria the thousands of fighters on the side of IS rebels who come from the ex-Soviet Union.

Putin has said that up to 7,000 people from Russia and its former Soviet neighbours may be fighting for IS and that he does not want to see them returning to their native countries en masse.