MOSCOW, September 21 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Constitutional Court has upheld blocking of bank accounts belonging to people convicted of involvement in extremism or terrorism, according to the ruling published on the official court’s website.

Earlier, Russian citizen Anton Podchasov, who had been found guilty of making public calls for extremism, lodged a complaint with the court against provisions of law. His bank account was frozen after the man had been put on the list of extremists. The plaintiff asked the bank to return his money twice but was refused.

The man asked the Constitutional Court to declare this regulation illegal. However, the court did not find grounds to consider the complaint.

According to the court, need for the protection of constitutional values does not rule out taking actions preventing individuals convicted of terrorism and extremism from committing such crimes in future.

Thus, the Constitutional Court explained that freezing of assets is aimed to limit unsupervised disposal of the funds by persons “included on the list of organizations and individuals implicated in extremist or terrorist activities.”