The Moscow Zamoskvoretsky District Court on Friday found the suspects in the case involving mass riots on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012 guilty of the charges, an Interfax correspondent has reported, citing the sentence handed out by Justice Natalya Nikishina.
Standing trial are eight people: Andrei Barabanov, Stepan Zimin, Denis Lutskevich, Yaroslav Belousov, Artyom Savelov, Sergei Krivov, Alexandra Dukhanina, and Alexei Polikhovich.
The sentence says that the defendants “subjected authorities to violence posing no danger to their health, being aware of who is in front of them.” The document says that Andrei Barabanov “personally hit victim Kruglov at least once on the head and body.”
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court earlier tried a case involving 12 people, but the judge made a decision to amnesty Maria Baronova, Nikolai Kavkazsky, Leonid Kovyazin, and Vladimir Akimenkov on Dec. 19.
During the court deliberations, the prosecutors asked the court to sentence the defendants from five to six years in a penal colony.
The lawyers for the defendants, for their part, asked the court to acquit their clients.
An opposition protest demonstration on Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012, which was previously agreed upon with the Moscow city government, turned into clashes between demonstrators and police. As many as 400 people were detained following the clashes.
Twenty-nine people have been prosecuted, and three of them have already been convicted.
The State Duma declared amnesty marking the 20th anniversary of the Russian constitution on Dec. 18, 2013. Eight people were amnestied for the occasion.
