Russian sentenced for race murder

[frigidmagi]

BBC

A Russian man has been jailed for 16 years for the racist murder of a Peruvian student.

Igor Pavlyuk and 11 other defendants belonged to a racist group called White Patrol. The others were jailed for between two and five years.

The court in the southern city of Voronezh heard that two other foreigners were badly injured in the attack in which the Peruvian died.

Police there suspect a racist motive in at least six other murders since 1999.

The city has a large foreign student community.

The court heard that the defendants attacked 18-year-old Enrique Arturo Angeles Hurtado and several other foreigners at a sports grounds last October.

Pavlyuk stabbed Mr Hurtado eight times, the sentencing judge said, quoted by the Russian Itar-Tass news agency.

The Russian interior ministry recently reported a big increase in racially-motivated attacks on foreigners.

The Voronezh trial has been seen as a test of the judicial system and its willingness to deal with the problem, correspondents say.

Human rights groups have criticised the Russian authorities of condoning rising nationalism and allowing radicals to go unpunished.