Minecraft causes Russian teenager to be sentenced to five years in prison. For allegedly planning to blow up a virtual FSB security service building in the video game Minecraft.
A court in Siberia has sentenced a 16-year-old boy to five years in prison. In a high-profile terrorism case prompted by plans he had made with two of his friends. By adding the building of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to the popular video game “Minecraft”. Whereas, it will allow players to blow it up.
The First Eastern District Military Court in the Krasnoyarsk region. Had sentenced Nikita Uvarov on February 10 after finding him guilty of illegal weapons possession. And passing through training for implementation of a terrorist act he has been charge of. However, he has been rejecting the charges since his arrest in fall of 2020.
And in addition to this, are two other defendants. Which were also convicted of illegal weapons possession. But handed suspended prison terms of three years and four years, Vladimir Ilkov the lawyer for one of the two other defendants said.
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The hearing was held behind closed doors.
In addition, Uvarov and two other teenagers in the Siberian city of Kansk were detained in the summer of 2020 for spreading leaflets in support of a Moscow mathematician and anarchist activist who was on trial for vandalism.
To support Azat Miftakhov, a mathematician, who was in custody at the time. And later sentenced to six years in prison in January 2021. On terrorism charges that he and his supporters called as politically motivated.
They put one of the leaflets on a local building of the FSB, Russia’s powerful domestic security agency and successor of the Soviet-era KGB.
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Police took their phones and said they found an exchange about plans to blow up an FSB building that they had created in the popular block-building game Minecraft.
According to investigators, the teenagers were also learning to make improvised explosive devices and practiced detonating them in abandoned buildings.
Prosecutors had sought nine years in prison for Uvarov and six years in prison for the other defendants.
After their arrest, investigators confiscated their telephones. And said it is later that they found chats in the phone. That “had proven” that the trio planned to add the FSB building. To the Minecraft game and blow it up there.
The investigators also said that the boys criticized the FSB in the chats. Read banned books, fabricated firecrackers, and blew them up in abandoned buildings in their native city of Kansk.
Uvarov refused to cooperate with investigators and spent 11 months in pretrial detention. And was later released last year to finish the ninth grade at school, while his two co-defendants pleaded guilty. And fully cooperated with the investigation.
In his final statement at the trial on February 9. Uvarov reiterated his previous comments rejecting the charges. Added that if he is imprisoned, he “will serve the sentence with a clean conscience and dignity.”
“It was painful for me to see how my country oppresses people. Civil rights activists, who want the best for the country and stand for its well-being. Now, unfortunately, I am experiencing myself the despotism of the unfair collaborators of the system,” Uvarov said.
