A court in Russia's Krasnodar region said on August 23 that it had handed prison sentences to the first group of participants in anti-Jewish mob unrest in the North Caucasus region of Daghestan in October 2023.
Three men -- Anvarbek Atayev, Islam Ibragimov, and Salik Ramazanov -- were sentenced to 6 years and four months in prison each, while another defendant, Magomed Omaraskhabov, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years.
The four were found guilty of taking part in mass unrest. A fifth defendant, Rabadan Radzhabov, was also convicted of attacking a police officer and sentenced to nine years in prison.
The court concluded that the defendants’ actions at the airport in Makhachkala airport had been based on "ethnic and religious hatred," adding that their actions blocked the operations of the airport for a significant period of time.
The five men had pleaded not guilty.
The violence occurred on October 29, 2023, when hundreds of protesters, angry over the situation surrounding the ongoing war between Israel and the extremist group Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, broke through doors and barriers at the airport to get access to a plane that landed from Tel Aviv.
They stopped passengers who arrived from Israel, checking their ethnicity and citizenship by demanding that they show their passports.
In all, some 1,500 people took part in the unrest, with 136 of them subsequently being charged with participating in a riot and attacking law enforcement officers.
The Daghestani Prosecutor-General's Office said at the time that some 30 police officers were attacked while trying to restore order at the airport, some of whom sustained serious injuries.
The Kremlin blamed the unrest on "outside interference" and without showing any evidence accused Ukraine of involvement, which Kyiv rejected.
The Middle East conflict broke out after Hamas militants stormed Israel on October 7, killing hundreds of people and taking more than 200 hostage. Israel retaliated with a military campaign against Gaza, leading to the deaths of thousands of people and the destruction of much of the Gaza Strip.