Ukrainian Nikita Zhuravel, residing in Volgograd and working as a courier, became a defendant in the criminal case regarding the burning of the Koran. On behalf of Alexander Bastrykin, the case will be transferred to the department of the Chechen Republic.
According to the official representative of the department, Svetlana Petrenko, the reason for this decision was “numerous appeals” with the demand of residents of Chechnya to recognize themselves as victims.
After the decision, the head of the Russian Ministry of Justice, Konstantin Chuichenko, said that the suspect should be sent to a reformatory in the predominantly Muslim region. on this he aforementioned TASS.
Chuichenko expressed the view that such measures “will promote respect for religion and the religious feelings of believers in our multinational and multi-denominational country.”
Meanwhile, Zhuravel has suspect status in the case under Part 2 of Art. 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public acts expressing open contempt for society and committed to insult the religious feelings of believers).
According to the Investigative Committee, the man in the area of the Cathedral Mosque on Povorinskaya Street in Volgograd burned the Koran and filmed it with his phone. After that, the video was “published in the public domain on an Internet portal controlled by the Information and Psychological Special Operations Center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
“Thus, the suspect engaged in public actions to insult religious sentiments, by being in a place specially designed for worship and other religious rites and ceremonies,” law enforcement officials said.
During interrogation, footage of which was released by Russia’s FSB Center for Public Affairs, the man pleaded guilty and spoke about his ties to Kiev.
“I bought the Qur’an at the instruction of the SBU and burned it near the mosque on May 4. And filmed with his own phone, video materials were sent to SBU officials. They should have paid 10,000 rubles for this job,” says the prisoner in the video, standing in front of a white wall.
The video also mentions the reason for the action: an attempt to incite religious hatred between Christians and Muslims in the Volgograd region.
According to investigators, the detainee also confessed to another crime – filming Russian military installations deployed from Ukraine.
TASS resource in law enforcement declarationAmerican intelligence agencies involved in crime.
“The Ukrainian regime, including its special services, operates under the full control of American and British special agencies, including the preparation and implementation of terrorist attacks and sabotage on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the publication says.
The head of the Investigative Committee, Bastrykin, instructed investigators to consider “data on the involvement of representatives of the special services of foreign states in the criminal organization” during the investigation.