MOSCOW, April 22 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has ordered The New Times magazine to pay 240,000 rubles ($6,729) in compensation to two Moscow judges for a publication about plagiarism, attorney Vadim Prokhorov told RAPSI on Tuesday.

Moscow City Court judge Dmitry Gordeyuk and retired judge Yuri Bespalov sought against The New Times and reporter Zoya Svatova 1.1 million rubles ($30,839) in moral damages. The lawsuit concerned an article based on the finding of watchdog Dissernet, which claimed that the Judge Gordeyuk’s thesis was plagiarized from his mentor Bespalov.

On December 13, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow granted a defamation claim filed by two Moscow judges against The New Times publication in full, and the defense motion for an expert evaluation of the thesis in question was denied. The defendants have appealed the ruling.

The court thus granted the defendants’ appeal in part.

Earlier, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court granted a similar claim by Gordeyuk and Bespalov against Novaya Gazeta and its reporter.

Dissernet, a grassroots group that looks for plagiarism in academic works by Russian officials, has since its inception in 2011 identified what it claims to be the theft of written work by numerous high-ranking officials, including Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, and several federal lawmakers.

Most have denied allegations of plagiarism.