A court in Yekaterinburg sentenced Russian mathematician Azat Miftakhov to four more years behind bars on Thursday after finding him guilty of justifying terrorism for a conversation he allegedly had with fellow inmates, a group campaigning for his release reported.
Miftakhov, who is an anarchist, was immediately re-arrested in September upon his release from the Kirov region penal colony where he served his 2021 conviction for throwing a smoke grenade into a Moscow office of the ruling party United Russia in 2018.
The new charges follow supportive comments allegedly made by Miftakhov to fellow inmates while watching a news report about Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a student who blew himself up in an FSB office in the Arctic city of Arkhangelsk in 2018 in protest at the domestic intelligence agency’s alleged torture of anarchists.
Miftakhov pleaded not guilty to the charges, telling the court that the evidence against him was “falsified … just like five years ago” and that his case revealed the “terrorist nature” of the Russian government.