Moscow Court Doubles Prison Term To 7 Years For Ex-Schema Monk Sergiy

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Moscow's Babushkinsky district court has doubled prison term to seven years for jailed former schema monk Sergiy, whose civil name is Nikolay Romanov, for extremism, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Friday.

In November 2021, Sergiy was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for inciting suicide, violation of the right to freedom of conscience, and arbitrariness.

"(The court rules) to sentence Romanov Nikolay Vasilyevich to seven years in a general regime colony," judge Natalya Kurysheva said, specifying that the sentence partially combines punishment for all counts of crime imputed to the monk.

Sergiy's assistant, Vsevolod Moguchev, was sentenced to five years, in line with the prosecutor's request, the correspondent said.

After the verdict was announced, the former schema monk tried to say a parting word to those gathered, but was interrupted by a loud barking guard dog.

His followers shouted "Christ is Risen" as he was being led out of courtroom, the correspondent said.

Romanov's lawyer Pavel Babikov told reporters that the defense will appeal the verdict. He cited procedural violations, saying "the process was closed at the stage of presenting evidence of the defense."

According to investigators, Romanov and Moguchev spread anti-Semitic and anti-Muslims hatred through the latter's social media accounts.

The ex-schema monk was expelled from the clergy after he continuously incited people to take to the streets and protest against what he described as "ungodly self-isolation" and "Satan's electronic camp," referring to the coronavirus-related quarantine.