A Russian military court on March 12 handed down life sentences to four ​Tajik gunmen and 11 accomplices over the major March 2024 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall entertainment venue in outer Moscow, in which 149 people perished.

At the closed-door trial, four other defendants, two of whom were said to have provided the attackers with a car and another said to have rented them an apartment, received prison sentences ranging from 19 years and 11 months to ​22 years and 10 months. Radio Ozodi reported that 16 of the defendants are from Tajikistan, one is a Russian citizen of Kyrgyz origin and two are from Ingushetia, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus.

The attack carried out by four gunmen was the deadliest ​such attack in Russia in two decades. Afghanistan-based Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP, or ISIS-K), which works to radicalise and recruit Afghan, Central Asian and other nationals, claimed responsibility for the atrocity.

"[Shamsidin] Fariduni, [Dalerdzhon] Mirzoyev, [Muhammadsobir ] Faizov and [Saidakram] Rachabalizoda have been found guilty and are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment," the judge at the Second Western District Military Court in Moscow said, saying the four men were the direct perpetrators of the attack.

Various charges pressed against the 19 defendants included committing a terrorist attack, assisting in terrorist activities and participating in training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities.

Gulrakat Mirzoyeva, the mother of Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, told RFE/RL's Tajik Service that the verdict was unfair.

"It is slander, it is all lies. They never invited us, they did not speak to us. It is slander against my son. He did not do these things," Mirzoyeva said. "They got confessions by torture and beatings. Oh, God, where can I turn now, who will protect us?"

Ozodi reported Abdujamil Islomov, brother of one of the convicted, Isroil Islomov, who was sentenced to 19 years and 11 months in prison along with his sons Dilovar and Aminjon, as describing the court's verdict as harsh.

He was quoted as saying: "They're not militant people, they were not doing anything bad. We couldn't believe they would hand them such a sentence."

The convicted men are to serve their life sentences in "special regime" prisons in Russia. Such prisons are known for their harsh conditions.

It was not immediately clear how the defendants pleaded and whether they would appeal.

During the early days of the investigation, Russia’s Investigative Committee claimed that evidence linked the four gunmen to Ukraine. The claim was roundly rejected by both Kyiv and Washington.

After the attack occurred, US officials said they had warned Russia in advance that intelligence indicated such a terrorist incident was set to happen. They said it was unclear why their warning was not taken seriously enough by Russian officials to prevent the attack happening.

Ozodi reflected that since the Crocus City Hall attack, Russian authorities have presented no official evidence to the public in response to dozens of questions such as from where did the attackers get their advanced weapons and how did they manage to enter the concert hall unhindered, make the attack and then make a getaway.

Only as the indictment process got under way day did the Russian authorities show the faces of the four main suspects in court. It was clear they had been severely tortured.

The Crocus City Hall attack was Russia’s worst terrorist incident since the 2004 Beslan school siege in which 333 people, many of them children, died.