New Greatness case defendants found guilty of forming extremist group

MOSCOW. Aug 6 (Interfax) - Moscow's Lyublinsky District Court has found the defendants in the New Greatness case guilty of forming an extremist group.

Judge Alexander Maslov is reading out the verdict at the moment, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courthouse.

According to the judgement, the defendants "are guilty of creating an extremist group, i.e., an organized group with the aim of plotting or committing extremist crimes."

The judgement is still being read, and the court will hand down the sentence later.

All seven prisoners in the dock - Pyotr Karamzin, Dmitry Poletayev, Ruslan Kostylenkov, Vyacheslav Kryukov, Anna Pavlikova, Maria Dubovik, and Maxim Roshchin - have been found guilty.

The investigators established that the activists were planning to overthrow the constitutional system and instate a provisional government. The defense said that the charges were based on testimony from law enforcement officers acting within the group as undercover agents.