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LONDON (Reuters) – A Moscow court docket sentenced in absentia Pytor Verzilov, a Russian-Canadian activist and unbiased information website founder, to eight years and 4 months for social media posts criticising the conflict in Ukraine, Russian media reported on Tuesday.
Verzilov, 36, rose to prominence because the unofficial spokesperson of the feminist opposition group Pussy Riot after the jailing of its members following a stunt in Feb. 2012 through which they donned balaclavas and stormed into Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral, shouting out a tune in opposition to Putin.
Final week, the identical court docket sentenced one other Pussy Riot activist, Lyusya Shtein, to 6 years additionally in absentia below wartime censorship legal guidelines.
Verzilov has posted frequent criticism on social media of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, together with movies displaying mass graves within the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
The Ostorozhno Novosti Telegram channel stated that Moscow’s Basmanny District Court docket had discovered Verzilov responsible of spreading “intentionally false” details about the Russian army.
He was sentenced final 12 months for the crime, however an appellate court docket overturned the decision in March for unspecified causes and ordered a retrial.
Verzilov left Russia in 2020 after authorities searched his dwelling and he was charged with failing to tell the federal government he’s a citizen of Canada, the place he spent a part of his childhood.
He introduced final spring that he had joined the Ukrainian military combating in opposition to Russia, though it’s unclear if he’s nonetheless there.
Verzilov could not be instantly reached for remark.
In 2014, he and different Pussy Riot activists co-founded unbiased information website Mediazona, which reviews on Russia’s legal justice system.
An ally of the late opposition chief Alexei Navalny, Verzilov was, like Navalny, handled in Germany for suspected poisoning after he fell ailing immediately in Russia in 2018 and briefly misplaced his sight, listening to and skill to stroll.
(Reporting and writing by Lucy Papachristou; Enhancing by Sharon Singleton)
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