The Central District Military Court received a criminal case on public calls for terrorism and justification of terrorism (Part 1 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) against anarchist Azat Miftakhov. Information about this was published on the court’s website, Mediazona noted .
The case will be considered at an off-site hearing in Kirov. In this city, Miftakhov is in a pre-trial detention center, where he was sent in September 2023. The anarchist was detained while leaving the colony, from which he was released after the end of his sentence in a previous case. In the new case, he is accused of approving the action of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who staged an explosion in the Arkhangelsk FSB, while watching a television program with other prisoners.
In January 2021, Miftakhov was sentenced to six years in prison, but in April 2022, the Court of Cassation reduced the sentence to five years and nine months. According to investigators, the young man and three other defendants in the case broke a window in the United Russia office and threw a smoke bomb there. They were found guilty of hooliganism by prior conspiracy (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code). The remaining convicts received suspended sentences. He served his sentence in correctional colony No. 17, Kirov region. In July, the convict was recognized as a “malicious violator of the regime” and transferred to a detachment with strict conditions for serving his sentence.
Azat Miftakhov was detained on February 1, 2019 in the case of manufacturing explosives (Part 1 of Article 223.1 of the Criminal Code) during searches of left-wing activists. Miftakhov reported being tortured with a screwdriver at the police department, for which reason in September 2023 the ECHR awarded him compensation of 26 thousand euros. On February 4, the court was supposed to choose a preventive measure for the anarchist in the case, but the hearing was postponed for 72 hours - the investigation did not provide data proving the need for his arrest, the prosecutor argued. Then the case under this article was eventually dropped. On February 7, Miftakhov was released from the police department, but was immediately detained again - this time in the case of a broken window in the United Russia office.
- On October 31, 2018, anarchist Mikhail Zhlobitsky detonated a bomb in the building of the FSB Directorate in Arkhangelsk. Three FSB officers were injured, and the young man himself died. Law enforcement officials classified the incident as a terrorist attack. After this, security forces across the country began to open cases of justifying terrorism against those who spoke out about what happened on social networks. OVD-Info is aware of 55 such criminal cases that were initiated after the explosion in Arkhangelsk.
- In February 2023, the FSB opened a criminal case against the Moscow cell of the terrorist organization “Network” and conducted searches of Moscow anarchists. At the same time, the departmentbegan an investigation against Miftakhov.
- A criminal case against the “terrorist community Network” was opened in October 2017. According to the FSB, 11 young people in Penza and St. Petersburg organized the terrorist community “Network” and were planning to overthrow the government.