MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI) – The Supreme Court of Russia on Thursday upheld a 6-year prison sentence given to Crimean activist Yevgeny Karakashev for calls for terrorism on VKontakte social network, RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

The sentence thus came into force.

Karakashev was convicted and sentenced in April. The North Caucasus District Military Court also prohibited him from administering websites and personal online pages for 2 years.

His attorney Alexey Ladin believes that the prosecution of Karakashev is connected with the authorities’ pressure over housing development of the resort zone of Yevpatoria.

According to case papers, Karakashev published video in late 2014, a text in early 2017 and a comment in a live chat on the social network containing linguistic and psychological features of inciting to forced and destructive actions. Investigators recognized these posts as calls for terrorism.

The defendant was arrested on February 1, 2018.

This January, the North Caucasus District Military Court dropped an extremism case against Karakashev that had been initially launched over his publications on VKontakte social network.

Ladin earlier told RAPSI that the extremism case was opened against Karakashev after he published several unnamed videos on VKontakte and the last interview of the so-called Far Eastern Guerilla gang members convicted of widespread killings and robbery that has been declared extremist by court.