By The Moscow Times | Created at 2024-11-29 10:40:22 | Updated at 2024-11-29 12:33:00
2 hours ago
Jailed Moscow politician and war critic Alexei Gorinov was on Friday sentenced to three more years in prison for “justifying terrorism” in private conversations with inmates at a prison hospital.
Alexei Gorinov, a former Moscow councilor, was already serving a seven-year prison sentence as the first known Russian to be jailed under wartime censorship laws that criminalize anti-war protests.
Gorinov went on trial again this week on accusations based on testimony from fellow prisoners that he had justified Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Bridge and the actions of Ukrainian military units banned as “terrorists” in Russia.
Gorinov denied the charges and accused the witnesses of provoking him into discussing the Russian invasion of Ukraine while secretly recording their conversations.
A military court in the city of Vladimir found Gorinov, 63, guilty of “justifying terrorism” and handed him a three-year prison sentence, according to the independent news website Mediazona.
Gorinov’s lawyer explained that her client would end up spending eight years in prison under the combined sentences of “spreading war fakes” and “justifying terrorism.”
Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Gorinov to three years and six months in prison.
“I’m for peace, and you love war,” Mediazona quoted Gorinov telling the judge from the defendant’s cage after the verdict.
The human rights group Memorial has classified Gorinov as a political prisoner.
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