Marat Nigmatulin, the first-year Moscow State University philosophy student charged with “justifying terrorism,” says federal agents tortured him on school grounds. Nigmatulin told the television network Dozhd that the incident occurred on November 20, when two Federal Security Service agents confronted him at the MGU library and demanded that he sign a confession stating that he “created a terrorist organization with 100 members,” “arranged terrorist attacks in Kerch, Arkhangelsk, and Blagoveshchensk,” “built close ties with German, French, British, and Cuban intelligence,” “worked for the Vatican for many years,” and “sold Russia’s military secrets to foreigners.”

When Nigmatulin refused, the two men started cutting his fingers with a knife, he says. After two hours, they supposedly released him, after threatening to kill him and his family, if he didn’t sign the confession “in the very near future.”

In the fall of 2018, after a mass shooting at a vocational school in Kerch, Marat Nigmatulin put up flyers around Moscow stating that an organization called “Revolutionary Schoolchildren” claimed responsibility for the attack. Nigmatulin later said he made up the group and posted the leaflets as a prank to impress a girl. He’s been charged with “justifying terrorism” (a felony in Russia). He was placed under house arrest in December 2018 and released six months later, pending trial.