One of the accused, Salambek Dzakkhiev, will serve 10 years at a maximum security facility in Russia. The other, Maksharip Khidriev, will serve 4 years.

The ruling can be explained by the fact that the 2007 attack did not kill anyone.

Even though the intended aim was presumably to derail a train and send it into the river, causing a maximum amount of casualties and injuries, the Nevsky Express was traveling so fast that it missed the river and landed on the other side. Many people were injured, but none fatally.

Dzakkhiev and Khidriev are planning to appeal the ruling in the European Court of Human Rights.

The attack was allegedly carried out on behalf of Doku Umarov, leader of Chechen terrorists in the North Caucasus.

The Nevsky Express has just resumed functioning after another attack in late 2009 on the same line killed 27 people. That attack is thought to have been carried out under the orders of Buryatsky, who was killed by Russian security services.

It is said that Monday’s terrorist attacks on the Moscow metro system were carried out by Chechen militants as retaliation for the assassination of Buryatsky by Russian security forces on March 2.

The terrorist attacks are all seemingly linked to the terrorist organizations in the North Caucasus area. The investigators now are trying to find out who is behind those attacks and who is supplying the explosives used in all these attacks in Russia.