MOSCOW, February 16 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the life sentence handed down to Ilya Goryachev, one of the leaders of "militant organization of Russian nationalists" known as BORN, for  masterminding murders, according to the court’s press office.

The court dropped charges of creating an extremist group due to expiration of limitation period but this did not affect the term of punishment.

On July 15, a jury unanimously found Goryachev guilty of masterminding five murders, arms possession and trafficking, and of creating an extremist group. On July 24, the Moscow City Court sentenced Goryachev to life in prison and ordered him to pay 5 million rubles ($64,300) in compensation to the mother of killed leader of Russian anti-Nazi movements Ilya Dzhaparidze.

The homicides include the deaths of federal judge Eduard Chuvashov, attorney Stanislav Markelov, leaders of Russian anti-Nazi movements Fyodor Filatov, Ilya Dzhaparidze and Ivan Khutorsky, and Amateur Muay Thai world champion Muslim Abdullayev.

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

Members of BORN have been charged with racketeering, illegal weapons trafficking and several counts of ideological and racial homicide and the attempted murder of police personnel.

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 last September 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.”

In April 2015, the Moscow Region Court sentenced two other BORN members to life behind bars and another to 24 years in prison.