A court in Moscow sentenced the editor of the telegram channel “Protest MGU” to eight and a half years in prison on charges of spreading “fake stories” about the Russian army

The Timiryazevsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Dmitry Ivanov, editor of the Protest MGU telegram channel, to eight and a half years in prison, finding him guilty of spreading fake news about the Russian army. This is reported by Mediazona, referring to its own correspondent in the courtroom. Ivanov was also banned from maintaining public pages on the Internet for four years after serving his term.

Dmitry Ivanov has been in custody since April last year. First, he served two administrative arrests in a row, the reason for which were posts on the Protest MGU telegram channel, and immediately after his release, a criminal case was opened against him under an article about “fake” about the army. In June, the court chose a measure of restraint for him in the form of detention, since then Ivanov has been in a pre-trial detention center.

During the trial, it became clear that the whole position of the prosecution is based on opposing the words of Ivanov and official representatives of the Russian government, such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Ministry representative Igor Konashenkov and Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya.

At the request of Ivanov's lawyer, Maria Eismont, all three were summoned to court as witnesses. However, none of them showed up.

In January, after another court session, Dmitry Ivanov was severely beaten by police ensign Alexei Zhalnin. According to Ivanov, the security officer beat him, tried to dip his head into the toilet and threatened to rape him. After the beating, Ivanov lost sensation in one of his fingers due to a pinched nerve.

On March 1, the last court session was held as part of the consideration of Ivanov's case. At it, the editor of Protest MGU made his last speech, in which he called for supporting other political prisoners and spreading the truth.

Source: Mediazona

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