MOSCOW, Sept 16 (Reuters) – A Russian court has convicted a Russian-Canadian national of treason and sentenced him to seven years in a penal colony for work he did for for separatist movements based outside Russia, the RIA state news agency reported on Wednesday.
RIA reported that the man, whom it named as Nikolai Zyuzev, had been convicted of high treason for working to train leaders of “national liberation movements” among Russian ethnic minority groups abroad.
It cited Russia’s Federal Security Service as saying that his work had been aimed against the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. RIA did not say how Zyuzev had pleaded to the treason charge.
Zyuzev had been involved in distributing “extremist” materials and had been commissioned by “European Union government bodies and think tanks,” RIA cited the FSB as saying.
Russia is home to dozens of indigenous ethnic minorities, from Muslim Tatars to Buddhist Buryats. RIA reported that Zyuzev had been arrested in Komi, an ethnic minority region in Russia’s Arctic north.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Andrew Osborn )
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