A military court in Yekaterinburg has sentenced a jailed man to an additional four and a half years in prison for allegedly praising the killings of prominent pro-war figures, the exiled news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday.
Alexander Neustroev, 59, is already serving a three-year prison sentence in a medium-security penal colony on charges of disorderly conduct after he insulted an 11-year-old boy for wearing a hat that featured the pro-war “Z” symbol.
State prosecutors claimed that Neustroev expressed approval of the killings of Daria Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, and war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky during a conversation he had with several other inmates at his penal colony in April.
In court, Neustroev called the incident “the biggest mistake of my life” and declared his full support for the Russian government.
Nevertheless, the Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg found him guilty of “justifying terrorism” after a single hearing. Neustroev had requested that his trial be expedited, according to Mediazona.
State prosecutors requested that a judge order him to serve the first three years of his sentence in a regular prison before being moved to a maximum-security facility. Neustroev, who suffers from a long-term liver condition, asked to remain at the penal colony where he is currently being held in order to continue receiving medical care.
A judge denied those requests and ordered him to spend the entire four-and-a-half-year sentence at a maximum-security prison.
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