Ingushetia resident sentenced in North Ossetia for kidnapping militiamen

Today, the North Ossetia supreme court has sentenced Ruslan Surkhoyev, resident of Ingushetia, to 11 years of high-security prison for kidnapping militiamen and teenagers.

Sources in the general prosecutor's office claim that, in June 1997, in the village of Maiskoye, Prigorodny district, North Ossetia, Surkhoyev and his three accomplices, armed with automatic guns, kidnapped two officer of the republics MoI agency, took hold of their arms and a personal car, while threatening to kill them. One militiaman was subsequently released for a ransom of $25,000, while the location of the second one has not been identified yet.

In June 1998, Surkhoyev, as member of a gang acting near the village of Tsalyk, Pravoberezhny district of the RNO - Alania, kidnapped six more residents of the republic who were released three months later for a ransom of $115,000, reports the source in the general prosecutor's office to the ITAR-TASS agency.

At present, Isa Barakhoyev, the gang leader, and its members Zubeir Dakhkilgov, Ruslan Aliyev, Hussein Kurkayev, Akhmed Chaniyev and Beslan Chapanov have been sentenced for the above crimes to durable imprisonment, reports "Pravo.ru".