The court ruling

A Kazakhstan court has sentenced a group of 14 alleged Russian separatists accused of plotting to overthrow the government last November to up to 18 years in prison, state media said on Friday. Khabar television showed the accused, 11 of them Russian citizens, watching impassively from behind steel bars as Margarita Kislova, the judge at the trial in the northern city of Ust-Kamenogorsk, read out the sentences late on Thursday. The 13 men and one woman were accused of planning a coup in Kazakhstan's industrial heartland close to the Russian border. Local security forces found a small stash of arms belonging to them late last year and said that they were seeking to seize the local administration and form a "Russian Land" republic separate from Kazakhstan. Group leader Viktor Kazimirchuk, who also called himself Viktor Pugachyov, received 18 years in jail, five in a regular prison and 13 in a top-security labour camp, had his property confiscated and was fined 362,500 tenge ($2,500).