#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #RUSSIA #VOLOGDA #News #Journal #Update - (en) avtonom: Anarchist from Vologda sentenced to 300 hours of compulsory labor [machine translation]

 Today, on October 27, in Vologda, the verdict to Ruslan Gatamov was announced.

The court found the Vologda activist guilty of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the
wall of the United Russia office and sentenced him to 300 hours of compulsory
labor under the hooliganism article. The prosecutor asked for six months of
correctional labor. Ruslan Gatamov, who has participated in various protest
initiatives since the 2010s, including in the defense of Shies, did not deny that
on the night of October 30-31, 2019, he threw a Molotov cocktail into the wall of
the ruling party's office. However, he emphasized that the action was carried out
at night, no one was in the room, and the Molotov cocktail was thrown not at the
window, but at the wall.

The damage to the building amounted to 653 rubles 23 kopecks. Initially, the case
was initiated under the article "Vandalism", but later the investigation
reclassified the charge to a more serious article - "Hooliganism", which provides
for a punishment of up to 5 years in prison. At the same time, the qualifying
sign of "Hooliganism" is "disrespect for society" - what it was in this case, the
investigation did not explain.

Ruslan Gatamov commented on the verdict in the following way: "I was extremely
surprised by the verdict and by what the prosecutor asked for, since he
understood that the investigation and the FSB were not interested in the episode
of arson. They were interested in the anarchist organization "People's
Self-Defense", to which the court still referred me that I was supposedly a
member of it. It was, of course, dumb, to be honest. They were accused of serious
things, extremism. I did not admit my guilt. I was ready for
anything.[...]Regarding the trial, I am glad that there was little cost. I would
never slander anyone. That's how I was raised. At the trial, I did not deny that
I would be an anarchist. But he did not create pomp. The case finally came to an
end. Thank you for supporting me at all stages, for throwing off money. He hugged
everyone. " Also, the anarchist believes that such a relatively lenient sentence
was the result, among other things, of publicity.

Gatamov's defender, a Vologda lawyer, Yuri Makarov, said that he had not yet seen
the text of the verdict, so he could not comment on it in detail. In general, the
defense attorney noted: "I assumed there would be a guilty verdict. However, to
the end, I believe that the verdict must be acquittal, since there is no corpus
delicti. I think that we will appeal it to the regional court. "

https://avtonom.org/news/anarhista-iz-vologdy-prigovorili-k-300-chasam-obyazatelnyh-rabot
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