MOSCOW, January 21 (RAPSI, Artem Ponomarev) – The Russian Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the sentence for three members of a notorious extremist movement BORN convicted of masterminding multiple killings, RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

The defendants have filed appeals seeking vacating of guilty verdict. Prosecutors asked the court to dismiss the complaints.

In April 2015, the Moscow Region Court sentenced two BORN members, Vyacheslav Isayev and Maxim Baklagin, to life behind bars. The third member of the group, Mikhail Volkov received 24 years in jail.

The fourth member of the group, Yury Tikhomirov, was acquitted.

Young men were charged with racketeering, illegal weapons trafficking and several counts of homicide, including the deaths of lawyer Stanislav Markelov, federal judge Eduard Chuvashov, and several leaders of Russian anti-fascist movements. The jury found Isayev, Baklagin and Volkov guilty of killings and attempted murders in March.

According to investigators, nationalists Ilya Goryachev and Nikita Tikhonov created the Military Organization of Russian Nationalists (BORN) in Moscow in mid-2008.

Tikhonov, who is believed to be one of the group’s leaders, was convicted and sentenced in May 2011 to life in prison for the murder of Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova. He got 18 extra years in prison in September 2014 for killing Chuvashov.

Tikhonov’s accomplice Yevgenia Khasis, who was given 18 years behind bars, said in her testimony that Goryachev was a murderer “because he ordered the murders.”

Goryachev was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding murders in July 2015.