A state prosecutor has asked a St. Petersburg court to sentence former Russian lawmaker Mikhail Glushchenko to 13 years in jail for his alleged role in organizing the high-profile killing of lawmaker Galina Starovoitova.
Glushchenko was charged in 2013 with complicity in masterminding Starovoitova's 1998 assassination.
He made a deal with investigators in March and claimed businessman Vladimir Barsukov, aka Kumarin, ordered Starovoitova's killing because she was preventing him from establishing ties with some corrupt city officials.
Starovoitova, a co-chair of the Democratic Russia party, was shot dead in her apartment building in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998.
Barsukov was previously jailed on other charges unrelated to Starovoitova's killing but was later released from prison.
In June 2005, a St. Petersburg court found Yury Kolchin guilty of involvement in organizing the killing and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
Another man, Vitaly Akishin, was found guilty at the same time of carrying out the killing and sentenced to 23 1/2 years in jail.
The judge had to stop the proceedings on August 21 when Glushchenko collapsed in the courtroom while making his final statement. Medical personnel were brought in to assist him.
