Moscow court hands down guilty verdict on Islamists

© wikipedea

15:48 30/07/2014

MOSCOW, July 30 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on Wednesday handed down a guilty verdict on members of the banned terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party), RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

The four defendants were charged with arms trafficking, creation of an extremist community, aiding and abetting terrorism, and attempting to overthrow government.

According to investigators, the defendants were preparing to overthrow the Russian government and to change the constitutional system, and had created secret cells and armed their accomplices.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) routed the group in the fall of 2012, arresting 18 citizens of Russia and Tajikistan and confiscating currency blanks for printing fake $1 million and EUR 2 million, as well as weapons and extremist literature.

Russia’s Supreme Court declared Hizb ut-Tahrir an international terrorist organization on February 14, 2003 and prohibited its activity in Russia.

According to a 2003 report by the International Crisis Group conflict-prevention NGO, Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political organization whose aim is to unite all Muslims via the establishment of one large state that could counterbalance the West.

Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have previously been arrested in various Russian regions but predominantly in large cities in central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia. The organization has many supporters in Crimea, which became a member of the Russian Federation in the spring of 2014.