The military appeal court in Vlasikha confirmed the sentence of activist Mikhail Kriger - seven years in prison - in the case of posts on Facebook. A listener from the courtroom reports this to OVD-Info.
In May, the 2nd Western District Military Court found the man guilty under articles on public justification of terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) and public calls for extremism on the Internet (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code). Krieger’s lawyers told OVD-Info that the last charge was re-qualified: the article on inciting hatred with the threat of violence (clause “a” of Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code), which was previously charged against the activist, was replaced with public calls for extremism.
The prosecutor in the debate requested nine years in a general regime colony for him. In his last word, the activist said that posts on social networks are a formal reason for persecution. “They are persecuting me for my first anti-war, and now openly pro-Ukrainian position, which I not only do not hide, but I try to demonstrate as widely as possible and at every opportunity,” Krieger said.
The criminal prosecution of Krieger is based on posts on Facebook: in one of them, according to investigators, the activist justified actions committed “in 2018 in the city of Arkhangelsk and in 2019 in Moscow.” In the first case, we are probably talking about the self-explosion of Mikhail Zhlobitsky in the Arkhangelsk FSB building, in the second, presumably, about Yevgeny Manyurov, who opened fire near the FSB building in Moscow.
In another post, which became the reason for tightening the charges, it was said: “I do not hide from anyone my fierce hatred of the regime, the security officers who established it and personally V.V. Putin. And believe me, when and if I live to see this GBshna hanged nits, I will fight with all my might for the right to participate in this uplifting event.”
Krieger was detained in November 2022. The man was not far from the Kurskaya metro station near the Artplay space when security forces in black balaclavas ran up to him, threw him to the ground and then took him away in an unknown direction. The security forces also took away the car in which he arrived. Later that same day, the activist’s home was searched.
Two days later, the court arrested Krieger for two months. In May it became known that he was transferred to the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center. The day before, on May 16, the project “For Human Rights” reported that a public defender was not allowed into the detention center to see Krieger.
- In October 2018, Arkhangelsk resident Mikhail Zhlobitsky detonated a bomb in the building of the local FSB Directorate. Three employees were injured, the young man himself died. A few minutes before the incident, a message about an explosion appeared in the open telegram chat “Rech Rebelshchika”. In connection with this event, a criminal case of terrorism was opened.
- Residents of Russian cities began to speak out about what happened on social networks - some posts became the reason for criminal prosecution. OVD-Info is aware of more than 50 criminal cases of “justification of terrorism” initiated in the wake of the explosion in the Arkhangelsk FSB Directorate.