In the late 1980s, after the release of the law "On Cooperation" and the flourishing of the cooperative movement, the protection and racketeering of which brought in large profits, Mursalimov began to spend a lot of time in the company of people leading a criminal lifestyle and became addicted to alcoholic beverages, as a result of which he was fired from law enforcement authorities for appearing at work while intoxicated.
According to the testimony of Mursalimov's wife, after his release from prison, Yakhiya experienced difficulties finding employment, as a result of which he was constantly in a state of nervous tension, drank alcoholic beverages almost every day and started scandals with her.
Leading a vagabond lifestyle, he constantly moved throughout the Orenburg Oblast and the territory of Bashkortostan and never spent the night twice in the same place.
When committing crimes, he was not extremely careful, as a result of which law enforcement officers found his fingerprints at many murder scenes.
Having learned about this, Mursalimov at the end of 1998 left the territory of the Orenburg Oblast and moved to Bashkortostan, where, acting according to the same scheme, he committed six more brutal murders.
Based on this, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan on October 22, 1999, found Yakhiya Mursalimov guilty of all charges and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
After serving 20 years in prison, 66-year-old Yakhiya Mursalimov filed a cassation appeal with the Sol-Iletsky District Court asking for a reduced sentence.
Mursalimov, in connection with changes in criminal legislation, demanded that the indications regarding the recognition of the convicted person as a particularly dangerous recidivist and the aggravating circumstance of committing a crime while intoxicated be excluded from the sentence, which would make it possible to achieve the reclassification of his act and the abolition of the criminal penalty in the form of life imprisonment, but the Sol-Iletsky District Court ultimately rejected his complaint.