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Russia sentences Quran arsonist for sharing intel with Ukraine

Nikita Zhuravel has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for sharing information about Russian military movements with Ukraine.

Reuters

Defendant Nikita Zhuravel, who was detained in May 2023 under a law against offending religious believers' feelings after he burned a copy of the Quran outside a mosque in Volgograd city, attends a court hearing in the Chechen capital of Grozny, Russia, February 27, 2024. / Photo: Reuters

A Russian man serving time in prison for burning a copy of the Quran was found guilty by a court on Monday in a separate treason case and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

A regional court in Volgograd in southwestern Russia said it had convicted Nikita Zhuravel, 20, of state treason for corresponding online with a member of the Security Service of Ukraine and for acts "directed against the security of the Russian Federation".

The office of Russia's Prosecutor General said last month that Zhuravel had also been accused of sending footage of a freight train carrying warplanes, and information about the movements of a car linked to a Russian military base to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence.

Zhuravel's case drew attention last year when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov published video showing his son Adam, then 15, beating and kicking him while he was in prison in Chechnya awaiting trial for burning a Quran in Volgograd, his hometown.

The number of such cases has risen sharply in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, as intelligence agencies pursue a crackdown on suspected foreign spies and agents.

Zhuravel is already serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence handed down by a court in Chechnya in February after being convicted of hooliganism for publicly burning a Quran in his hometown of Volgograd.

🚨#BREAKING: Volgograd Regional Court in Russia has sentenced Nikita Zhuravel to 14 YEARS in PRISON!

He was convicted for BURNING the QURAN in public, as well as addition charges including TREASON!

Good riddance! 👏 pic.twitter.com/JyXjweR50I
— The Saviour (@stairwayto3dom) November 25, 2024