A court in Moscow has sentenced Alberto Enrique Giraldo, a Colombian national, to 5 years and 2 months of prison sentence for disseminating “fakes about the Russian military” in an SMS mailout, Mediazona cites the court.
The trial was a closed one; and the man was held in a pretrial jail during the investigation.
The Colombian national used to be a student at the RUDN University in Moscow and opted to stay in Russia after he finished his programme. On his Facebook page, the man wrote that “there are no winners or losers in a war”, and criticised “Russophobia” and NATO’s activities.
He was arrested in April 2022. The investigation’s theory is that between 9 and 18 March, Alberto “placed cell phones in a shopping mall in Moscow, sending false messages about the activities of the Russian military in Ukraine, including alleged killings of civilians, and did so by prior appointment from foreign individuals”.
“We have investigated online conversations the defendant had with people from one of the South American countries. They have been acting on behalf of the American Digital Humanity organisation that is connected with the US Agency for International Development,” Russia’s Investigative Committee stated.
The investigators also claimed to have found six cell phones while searching the shopping mall.
