19-year-old Altai State University student and member of the Barnaul youth parliament Anton Epikhin, author of an anonymous letter warning of an attempt being prepared on the life of presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev
Photo: IA "BANKFAX"
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Student in Court for Anonymous Threat
The investigative section of the Oktyabrsky OVD (police) of Barnaul has sent the case of 19-year-old Altai State University student and member of the Barnaul youth parliament Anton Epikhin to that city's Oktyabrsky district court. Epikhin was the author of an anonymous letter warning of an attempt being prepared on the life of presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev. Now Epikhin is being charged under article 207 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Knowingly false information about a terrorist act”), which is punishable by up to three years' imprisonment.
Epikhin sent an electronic letter to the Bankfax information agency in Altai on February 10 warning that a terrorist act was being prepared against Medvedev by a group called the Warriors of the Holy Jihad of Northern Asia. Medvedev was scheduled to visit Barnaul for the National Rural Gathering on March 13. Members of the terrorist organization were supposedly going to plant bombs in several buildings in the city.
Editor-in-chief of Bankfax Valery Savinkov forwarded the letter to the territorial FSB office. FSB staff were quickly able to identify Epikhin through the Plaza Internet cafe from which he sent the letter. Epikhin confessed immediately. “I wanted to enliven our informational swamp,” he said. “I didn't expect such a reaction to it [the letter]. For me, it was a typical prank. One information agency I sent a letter to two years published the news that a 56-meter-long snake had been seen in the Barnaul area. My message was of that type.”
“It can be suggested from the people involved in the case that the student will receive the maximum punishment possible for the deed. I do not want to condone it, but I think that years in prison are, nonetheless, a rather severe outcome for his action,” Savinkov wrote to Medvedev shortly after the Epikhin's arrest.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 15, 2008
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