Russian teenager jailed for plot to blow up FSB building in Minecraft
Five years for alleged terrorist charges.
A Russian teenager who allegedly planned to blow up an FSB security service building in Minecraft has been sentenced to five years in prison.
The teen, 16-year-old Nikita Uvarov, has been charged with training for terrorist activities by a Siberian military court.
Two further defendants were cleared of charges and given suspended sentences for cooperating with investigators.
The three teens were detained in the summer of 2020 for spreading political leaflets in support of a Moscow mathematician and anarchist, who was on trial for vandalism. They were aged 14 at the time.
They left leaflets at a local FSB building. Russia's FSB is the successor to its Soviet-era KGB.
Their phones were taken, on which police discovered a plot to blow up a virtual FSB building they had created in Minecraft.
Their phones also contained videos of the teens throwing Molotov cocktails at a wall and creating pyrotechnics, according to the Moscow Times.
Uvarov pleaded not guilty in court, stating pressures from authorities during the investigation and denied planning to blow anything up.
"I am not a terrorist, I am not guilty," he said in his closing statement.
The case is part of a wider pattern where teens are targeted by state security forces to create an atmosphere of fear among young people critical of the government, claim human rights activists.