Russia Jails Man For Planning School Shooting

Russian officials said Wednesday a 20-year-old man planning a mass shooting including detonating explosives at a technical college in Siberia was jailed for 10 years

Moscow, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th May, 2021 ) :Russian officials said Wednesday a 20-year-old man planning a mass shooting including detonating explosives at a technical college in Siberia was jailed for 10 years.

News of the ruling comes one week after a former student of a school in the central Russian city of Kazan shot dead seven students and two teachers in the country's worst mass shooting in years.

The Buryatia region branch of the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a statement the man was found guilty of several charges including making explosives and preparing a mass attack.

"By a court verdict, the young man was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a fine of 15,000 rubles ($200, 170 Euros) in a strict regime prison colony," it said.

Investigators said the man in 2019 had blown up an empty residential building in the countryside in preparation for the attack and had purchased a pistol, gas masks, black masks and remote controls for detonating improvised explosive devices.

They said he had tried but failed to recruit three others to carry out the attack.

Their statement claimed the man had in 2018 carried out extensive research of school shootings online and that he decided to carry out a similar attack at a technical school in Ulan-Ude, the regional capital.

The statement said the man had entered the facility several times posing as a prospective student, but that the attack was ultimately thwarted by the regional Federal Security Service (FSB).

He was deemed of sound mind and health, it added.

Russia has relatively few school shootings due to normally tight security in education facilities and the difficulty of buying firearms legally, although it is possible to register hunting rifles.

The FSB says it has prevented dozens of armed attacks on schools in recent years.

In February 2020, the FSB said it had detained two teenagers on suspicion of plotting an attack on a school in the city of Saratov with weapons and homemade explosives.

Last week's attack in Kazan however rocked the country.

In the aftermath, President Vladimir Putin called on lawmakers to toughen gun control laws and other senior officials demanded stricter regulation of the internet.