Two women Islamists plotted suicide bomb attack in Russia

Two women Islamists found guilty of planning a terrorist attack on a shopping centre have been jailed for a total of 23 and a half years.

Tatyana Karpenko and Natalia Grishina denied plotting to kill shoppers in the city of Rostov in south-western Russia’s Rostov Oblast region in 2015.

But a woman they had recruited to detonate a suicide vest while surrounded by shoppers confessed to her role in the plan.

As part of a plea bargain, Viktoria Semyonova received a lighter sentence of three years in a separate hearing.

Karpenko (left) was jailed for 14 and a half years, while Grishina (right) received a lighter sentence of nine years

Karpenko, who has a three-year-old daughter, was found guilty of planning the attack and of recruiting Semyonova.

She will be jailed for 14 and a half years. She was also fined 150,000 Russian rubles, the equivalent of £1,900.

Grishina was also found guilty of planning the attack but not of inducing another person to commit a crime, and so received the lighter sentence of nine years. She was fined 100,000 Russian Rubles, or £1,270.

The Investigative Committee of Russia – the country’s federal investigating authority – said it believed Karpenko and Grishina were both supporters of radical Islamism.

It said they shared the views of international terrorist organisations such as the so-called Islamic State and the lesser known Caucasus Emirate.

Both women were said to be unemployed.

The Investigative Committee of Russia – the country’s federal investigating authority – said it believed Karpenko and Grishina (in court) were both supporters of radical Islamism