In a shocking incident, three 14-year old Siberian schoolchildren have been arrested and sentenced for planning to detonate a Federal Security Services (FSB) building in Minecraft, reports The Moscow Times. Officials from the Krasnoyarsk region had arrested three suspects in June for hanging up politically motivated leaflets over the real FSB building which said, “The FSB is the main terrorist” in favor of Azat Miftakhov, a mathematician who was charged for six years in prison for allegedly attacking a Pro-Kremlin political party office. The three 14-year olds will now be facing heavier charges of organizing a terrorist group.
Minecraft schoolchildren sentenced: What led to the court sentence
According to investigators from Krasnoyarsk, the suspects were arrested under the assumption of training at abandoned sites to commit acts of terrorism, and also for reading banned literature and watching videos on how to make explosives.
Following their arrest, Police officers seized the phones of the teenagers where they found videos of them manufacturing pyrotechnics and also throwing molotovs at walls, the officials also discovered their plan to blow up the virtual FSB building on their phone.
The three suspects are identified as Nikita Uvarov, Denis Mikhailenko, and Bogdan Andreyev from Kansk, a town in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region. According to the Eastern Military court of Krasnoyarsk, not just Uvarov, his friends Mikhailenko and Andreyev were also found guilty of “undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities” The court sentenced Uvarov to five years in prison, three years to Mikhailenko and four years to Andreyev.
After the court’s order, Mikhailenko and Andreyev pleaded guilty and were placed on house arrest, but Uvarov denied the charges prompting him to be placed under detention before trial. The teenagers, lawyers, and school teachers have “normal” and “like other kids.”
On Thursday, Uvarov was brought to the court for a hearing where he said “I had a desire to learn something new, I liked to learn something about physics, chemistry, biology, about various famous scientists; I also watched scientific and educational programs,”
Kremlin has been accused for various human rights violations
In his closing statement, he pleaded to the court that “I am not a terrorist, I am not guilty,” he added that “I would just like to finish my studies, get an education and go somewhere far away from here, somewhere I don’t irritate anyone from the special services,” as reported by The Moscow Times.
The Kremlin has been accused by various human rights activists and organizations for actively using arrest as a way to suppress people from voicing their opinions. Human rights activists describe the case as the usual practice of Kremlin officials, as anyone critical about the government is silenced with arrests by the special forces to create an atmosphere of fear and hesitation to prevent them from criticizing the government for its flaws.
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