During the debates in the Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg, the prosecution requested a 19-year prison sentence for Ural anarchist Alexey Rozhkov, accused of setting fire to a military enlistment office, reports a «Mediazona» correspondent from the courtroom.
In addition, he is charged with «justifying terrorism» and spreading «fakes» about the Russian army for an interview with the program «Khodorkovsky LIVE».
The prosecution also requests to prohibit Rozhkov from administering websites and channels on the internet for five years.
During the debates, the prosecutor stated that during the fire, which was quickly extinguished, «a lot of combustion products» were released, posing a threat to people's health. Furthermore, the prosecutor speculated on the potential damage if the enlistment office had burned down completely. The defense noted that only the plastic entrance doors melted, the actual damage amounted to 1,256 rubles, and the prosecutor's assumptions are not evidence in the case.
The 27-year-old anarchist Alexey Rozhkov from the Sverdlovsk region, who worked as a consultant in an electronics store DNS, was detained on March 11, 2022, when he threw three bottles of gasoline at the city military enlistment office building. The building was almost undamaged by the fire — it was immediately extinguished.
As «Mediazona» writes, during interrogation, he immediately confessed to the arson and explained that he did it as a protest against the war in Ukraine. Rozhkov insisted that the goal of his action was not «destabilizing the situation» in the country or destroying the enlistment office, but drawing attention to the war and the conscription of draftees to the front.
Initially, the man was sent to a pre-trial detention center under the article for «attempted murder»: that night, security guard Svetlana Sultanova was on duty in the enlistment office building.
While in the pre-trial detention center, Rozhkov ended up in the psychiatric ward — he was suffering from insomnia, and the treatment prescribed by prison doctors was not helping. Six months later, the investigation softened Rozhkov's charge to attempted destruction of someone else's property, and he was released under a travel ban.
By that time, partial mobilization had already been announced, and the investigation began to qualify arson of enlistment offices as acts of terrorism rather than destruction of someone else's property.
Rozhkov decided to leave the country and headed to Kyrgyzstan. In May 2023, local law enforcement came to him, took him to Bishkek airport, and handed him over to Russian law enforcement.
During interrogation in court, Rozhkov stated that after arriving in Yekaterinburg, he was beaten with a stun gun, had a bag put over his head, and was threatened with murder and rape.
The anarchist was again sent to a pre-trial detention center, and the charge against him was toughened to «terrorism». The investigation also added new charges for the interview with the program «Khodorkovsky LIVE», which he gave in Kyrgyzstan. «I am not more important than those people who are being bombed now in Ukraine and left without electricity, without food, subjected to genocide, — he said then. — I am not more important than all of this. What is more important — is that if something bad is happening, it needs to be stopped», — Rozhkov explained his actions.
* Recognized in Russia as a «foreign agent».
Photo: Mediazona