Russian Neo-Nazis Jailed For Killing Spree

Members of one of Russia's most vicious neo-Nazi gang have been jailed for committing 27 hate killings.

Five members of the Nationalist Socialist Society North were handed life sentences at Moscow City Court.

Seven others were imprisoned for between 10 and 24 years and one was given an eight-year suspended sentence.

The string of killings included the videotaped decapitation of one of their own gang members.

The defendants were mostly men in their 20s and one woman, Vasilisa Kovolyova, who was jailed for 19 years.

Most had pleaded partial guilt but requested leniency after their lawyers said they were coerced into committing the crimes.

Maria Malakhovskaya, lawyer for Konstantin Nikiforenko, blamed the websites of neo-Nazis and Russian supremacists for brainwashing the defendants with far-right ideology.

And Kovolyova's lawyer Sergei Stashevsky claimed his client's confession was "beaten out" of her "through torture". "The trial is definitely political," he said.

But Alexander Kolodkin, an ethnic Russian whose son was stabbed to death in 2008, said: "Irrespective of whether they were fooled or mentally lost, they are evil killers who will never get back to a normal life. They should be isolated."

During the trial, the court heard how the gang hunted mostly darker-skinned labour migrants in a chilling series of rampages that climaxed in February and March of 2008.

They ganged up on apparent foreigners and stabbed them with knives, metal rods and sharpened screwdrivers in brutal attacks co-ordinated by the gang's leader, Lev Molotkov.

They were also convicted of strangling and decapitating one of their comrades whom they suspected of being a police informant and stealing \$112,000 from the gang's funds.

The decapitation, during which they donned clown masks and sang a patriotic song, was videotaped and posted online.

During the trial, the defendants mocked the judge, cracking jokes, shouting swear words and performing Nazi salutes. Some also wore white masks.

After the sentences were handed down, one could be heard to yell "our conscience is higher than your laws".

The case concluded as a loose group of nationalists announced a coalition with the country's third-largest political party, potentially giving a growing nationalist movement a louder voice in the country's parliament.

The Liberal Democrat Party and a group of nationalist politicians and activists said their union would "protect the Russian people and (Russia's) interests".