A military court in Siberia sentenced a 16-year-old boy to five years in prison on Thursday. Nikita Uvarov has been accused of ‘training to carry out terrorist activities’, according to the judge. His friends Denis Mikhailenko and Bogdan Andreyev, also 16, were given suspended sentences of three and four years in prison.
The trio detonated Molotov cocktails in an abandoned building two years ago. Also in Minecraft, a popular computer game in which players can build three-dimensionally, they had made a replica of the headquarters of the secret service FSB in Moscow. They wanted to blow up that virtual building on Minecraft, according to chat conversations on their phones.
The fourteen-year-olds were arrested in June 2020 when they showed support for Azat Miftachov with flyers at the local FSB office in their hometown of Kansk. This young mathematician is serving six years in prison for allegedly setting fire to the offices of the ruling political party United Russia in 2018. In the boys’ phones, the FSB found videos of their tinkering with pyrotechnics and Minecraft.
After several days of interrogation, Mikhailenko and Andreyev pleaded guilty, a confession they later retracted. They were placed under house arrest. Uvarov denied and was imprisoned for 11 months prior to the trial. He was provisionally released in May 2021. At the closed session on Thursday, Uvarov said, according to the newspaper: Novaja Gazeta that he was mentally and physically put under pressure to plead guilty.
Clear conscience
The “Minecraft terrorism case” is attracting attention in Russia and elsewhere because of the disproportionate charges, the age of the suspects and the lack of evidence. In an effort to prove the suspects’ guilt, prosecutors have pointed to conversations between the boys on social media about the social protest of the yellow vests in France, citizens in Belarus, American musician Kurt Cobain and Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. (1842-1921). The boys’ parents stated that there is nothing wrong with their children, that they are interested in chemistry and history and that they have never meant any harm.
Young Russians who criticize the government have been sentenced more often to severe sentences for ‘terrorism’ in recent years. In 2020, seven people of the alleged group Set (“Network”) convicted to sentences of six to eighteen years.
In his closing statement, just before the verdict, Uvarov said he would serve his possible sentence “with a clear conscience and dignity”. Uvarov: „I am not a terrorist. I would just like to finish school, study and go somewhere far from here.”
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