Defendant in case of businessman Prigozhin assassination plot given 3.5 yrs in penal colony
MOSCOW. Feb 8 (Interfax) - The Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg has read the sentence handed down to activist Vladimir Ivanyutenko having found him guilty of illegally purchasing explosive substances.
Ivanyutenko was sentenced to three years and six months in a penal settlement and a fine of 30,000 rubles, the united press service for the city courts told Interfax.
"The court found that in February 2019, Ivanyutenko illegally stored a piece of a blasting fuse containing the propellant explosive 'black powder' and two electric detonators containing a high-explosive charge of RDX or TEN weighing about 1 gram at a Pyatyorochka shop and handed them over to another person, who was involved in an operative experiment, in order to produce an explosive device," the press service said.
The preliminary investigators pointed out during the trial that the defendant is an active member of the nationalist organization Antivoyenny Komitet, which is banned in Russia, is prone to extremism, including using violent methods, and does not have registration in the territory of Russia.
The defendant, in turn, denied any involvement in Antivoyenny Komitet and described the case initiated against him as a "provocation of law enforcement agencies."
According to media, Ivanyutenko plotted an assassination attempt on St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, planning to blow up his car using an improvised explosive device.