Kazakh man sentenced to death in Islamic extremist attack

MOSCOW – A court in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan has sentenced a man to death for killing 10 people in an Islamic extremist attack in the country’s largest city earlier this year.

The court in Almaty on Wednesday found that 27-year-old Ruslan Kulekbayev was driven by “religious conviction” in the July shooting attack on a local police station that killed eight police officers and two civilians. Kulekbayev, who pleaded guilty to a terrorist attack and multiple homicides, said he was avenging his “Muslim brothers.”

Five other people who supplied Kulekbayev with arms received prison sentences from three to 10 years.

Kazakhstan issued a moratorium on capital punishment in 2003, but courts are still allowed to hand it down as a sentence.