A Russian court sentenced Thursday, February 10 to five years in prison a teenager accused of having "
trained in terrorism
" by planning in particular to blow up a virtual building of the secret services in the video game Minecraft.
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Nikita Uvarov, 16, was sentenced to five years in prison by a Siberian military court for "
training to commit terrorist acts
", lawyer Pavel Chikov reported on his Telegram account.
Suspended prison sentences were also pronounced against two other defendants who cooperated with the investigators, according to the same source.
The trial took place behind closed doors.
The three teenagers were arrested in Kamsk, Siberia, in the summer of 2020 for distributing leaflets in support of a Moscow mathematician and anarchist activist who was on trial for vandalism.
homemade bombs
By analyzing the phones of the three young people, the investigators claimed to have found discussions of plans to blow up a virtual building of the Russian security services (FSB) created on Minecraft.
The Minecraft video game notably allows the construction of virtual buildings and many users are inspired by the real world, sometimes recreating entire cities.
Investigators say the three suspects were also training to make real-life pipe bombs and detonate them in abandoned buildings.
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They were first prosecuted for “
belonging to a terrorist organization
”, but these charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.
During the last hearing of the trial, Nikita Ouvarov denounced "
pressure
" from the authorities during the investigation and denied any plan of attack, according to remarks reported by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
“
I am not a terrorist
,” he insisted.
The Russian authorities are renowned for their severity towards people suspected of preparing “
terrorist
” acts or vandalism.
In 2020, seven young anarchist and anti-fascist activists were sentenced to between six and 18 years in prison for "
terrorist " activities.
".
Several of them accused the investigators of having tortured them, in particular with electrodes, to extract confessions from them.
