Tverskoy District Court of Moscow sentenced RBC journalist Alexander Sokolov to 3.5 years of imprisonment in a minimum-security penal colony. The journalist was accused of extremism.
The court also found other defendants in the case guilty and sentenced Yury Mukhin to 3.5 years in prison, Valery Parfenov and Kirill Barabash – to 4.5 years.
According to investigators, they were members of the opposition organization “The People’s Will Army”, which was outlawed as an extremist group by Moscow City Court in 2010. The prosecution believes that the organization was not disbanded, but just renamed.
Investigators allege that Sokolov, Mukhin and Parfyonov were engaged in the recruitment of new members and sought funds for a successor organization to the People’s Will Army.
Russian human rights activists have declared the defendants political prisoners.
belsat.eu; photo – РБК
