Report: Moscow synagogue attacker gets 16 years

A court on Friday sentenced a man who injured nine people in a knife attack at a Moscow synagogue

to 16 years in prison after a second trial, Russian news agencies reported.

The Moscow City Court also ordered Alexander Koptsev, who was 20 when he rampaged through a synagogue last January, stabbing worshippers with a hunting knife before he was wrestled to the ground, to undergo psychiatric treatment at the facility where he will be imprisoned, RIA-Novosti

reported.

Koptsev had been convicted of attempted murder driven by racist motives in March and sentenced to 13 years in prison, but the Supreme Court overturned the conviction in June amid appeals by both prosecutors, who wanted a longer sentence, and defense lawyers who claimed he was mentally

unstable.

On Friday, the court convicted Koptsev of attempted murder driven by racist motives and of inciting ethnic hatred, Russian news agencies reported. The court had dropped the latter charge in the earlier trial, a decision that drew criticism from prosecutors and others who said it was politically motivated.

Russia has seen a marked rise in xenophobia and ethnic bias attacks in recent years. Amid criticism from rights groups that say authorities do little or nothing to combat xenophobia, often treating hate crimes as hooliganism, the swift prosecution of Koptsev and demand for a lengthy prison sentenced appeared aimed at displaying determination on the part of the government to fight hate crimes.

Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment.