A former associate of the leader of a south Russian Caucasus region was jailed for 17 years today over the murder of seven men in a business dispute.
Ali Kaitov, former son-in-law of Mustafa Batdyyev, president of the Karachayevo-Cherkassia region, was convicted of organising the murder of seven businessmen carried out by his guards.
The court said Kaitov wanted to obtain their shares in a chemical plant.
Kaitov is a former son-in-law of the republic's president and chairman of the Kavkaztsement cement manufacturing company.
The guards who carried out the murders were jailed for life.
Discovery of their mutilated bodies in a ravine in 2004 sparked daily protests by relatives in Cherkessk, capital of one of a patchwork of small and volatile southern regions that includes Chechnya.
The disturbances underscored Moscow's difficulty in asserting control in regions where authorities, business and organised crime are often linked.
