MOSCOW, May 15 - RAPSI. The St. Petersburg City Court has sentenced Yury Madorsky to 13 years in a high security prison for masterminding the murder of the chairman of a regional motorists society in 2007.

The case involved seven suspects, believed to be part of an organized criminal group.

According to law enforcement authorities, the gangsters committed three murders, one attempted murder and willfully destroyed a Volvo. Investigators hold that the gang members attacked chairman of the local motorists society Dmitry Troyan and beat him up with baseball bats. Troyan died of his injuries in a hospital on December 19, 2007.

Other gangsters have been given suspended and custodial sentences of up to nine and a half years in jail.