18 September 2006
A man has been sent to jail for 16 years for stabbing worshippers at a moscow synagogue. Alexander Koptsev, 21, went on a stabbing rampage on 11 January at the Bolshaya Bronnaya shul in Moscow, injuring nine people. In March he was found guilty of attempted murder of two or more persons, motivated by ethnic hatred. The court sentenced him to 13 years but dropped a charge of activities aimed at inciting racial, ethnic and religious hatred. At the time representatives of the injured Jews, as well some Jewish leaders, criticized the fact that the hate crimes charge had been dropped.
This original sentence was overturned in June following appeals by Koptsev’s lawyers, who argued that the punishment was too harsh. During the retrial he was found guilty of attempted murder and also of inciting racial hatred, the charge that had been dropped during his first trial. Koptsev’s lawyers said they were unsure if they would appeal the sentence again, but insisted that Koptsev deserved a lighter sentence because of his mentally unstable condition. In both trials, the court ordered compulsory psychiatric treatment for Koptsev.
The Federation of Jewish Communities, a leading Russian Jewish organization, said last Friday it was satisfied with the Moscow City Court’s verdict in the retrial, calling it more adequate “because it included hate crime charges and qualified the crime as an act of anti-Semitism.” Yitzhak Kogan, rabbi of the Bolshaya Bronnaya synagogue, said he was satisfied that the court finally had agreed that Koptsev had come to the synagogue precisely to kill Jews.