A court in Russia has ordered the arrest of a new suspect in a terrorism case that initially implicated a math lecturer who administered an anonymous online network.
Math teacher Dmitry Bogatov was acquitted last week of incitement to terrorism charges over a year after he was arrested for allegedly calling for riots on Moscow’s Red Square online. Bogatov denied his guilt, saying that anyone could have surfed anonymously through his computer to write the online posts through a network he had set up.
A Moscow court has now ordered Stavropol resident Vladislav Kuleshov to be held on the same charges that Bogatov was acquitted of until June 30, court spokesman Alexei Chernikov told the state-run TASS news agency.
“He used one of five accounts registered under the alias ‘Ayrat Bashirov.’ The two posts Bogatov had been charged with were written under the same alias but from a different account,” TASS quoted an unnamed source as saying.
Kuleshov had admitted his guilt, his attorney Marina Yefimenko told the Mediazona news website. She declined to elaborate, citing a non-disclosure agreement.
The posts in question called for “rags, bottles, gas, turpentine, styrofoam and acetone” to be brought to an unsanctioned rally, with a music video link portraying protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at police.
