MOSCOW, August 30 (RAPSI) - RBC news agency journalist Alexander Sokolov convicted of extremism has been released after recalculation of his prison sentence in accordance with new legislation, attorney Alexey Chernyshev has told RAPSI.

In July, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill on recalculation of terms of imprisonment into law. Amendments were proposed to the Criminal Code of Russia. Under the law, 1 day in a detention center would be counted as 1.5 days in a general regime penal colony or 2 days in a penal colony settlement.

In August 2017, four members of the referendum initiative group For Responsible Authorities, Sokolov, publicist Yury Mukhin, civil activists Kirill Barabash and Valery Parfyonov, were found guilty of extremism. 

Sokolov was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, while Barabash and Parfyonov were given 4 years behind bars. Barabash was also stripped of his lieutenant colonel rank. Mukhin received a 4-year suspended term and additional 4 years of probation. Prison terms of Barabash and Parfyonov were later reduced by 2 months.

The defendants were indeed members of the initiative group, which, the authorities believe, is the successor of earlier banned People’s Will Army (PWA), Mukhin told RAPSI earlier.

Sokolov, Parfyonov, and Barabash were charged with continuing to run the prohibited in 2010 People’s Will Army, earlier headed by Mukhin. After the PWA was banned, the accused founded the Referendum Initiative Group seeking to make the authorities directly answerable to the people through changing the country’s Constitution.

Nevertheless, the prosecution said that in fact Mukhin and his supporters had attempted to destabilize the political situation in Russia and accomplish a regime change with illegal means.

In 1995, Yury Mukhin, a proponent of radical change, founded the Duel newspaper, which attempted to reach out to Russian conservatives and far left. The newspaper was banned in 2009 on grounds of extremism.