MOSCOW, June 28 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova) - Russia’s Supreme Court’s Military Collegium  has reduced the sentence handed down to Roman Ivanov, an organizer of the St. Petersburg branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami organization banned in Russia, by 4 months, RAPSI learnt in the court’s press office on Tuesday.

In March, Ivanov was sentenced to 13 years and 4 months in prison for creating a terrorist group.

According to the convict’s lawyer, Alexander Kuznetsov, after the sentence had been read by the Moscow Military District Court, Ivanov pleaded guilty but argued against declaring the religious group headed by him had been terrorist.

In the summer of 2014, the Federal Security Service (FSB) in cooperation with police arrested about 30 individuals allegedly involved in the Islamic group’s activity in St. Petersburg. Ivanov was arrested in the Leningrad Region on June 24, 2014.

In June 2015, the FSB said Hizb ut-Tahrir activity in St. Petersburg had been stopped as a result of a joint operation of the local FSB and Interior Ministry departments. All active members of the group were put in jail, according to the statement.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Islamic Liberation), founded in Jerusalem in 1953, is banned in several Arab and Central Asian countries. Russia's Supreme Court banned the group from operating on the territory of the country in 2003, describing it as a terrorist organization.

Hizb ut-Tahrir members are regularly arrested by the police across Russia, mainly in big cities in central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia. Also, there are many supporters in Crimea, which rejoined Russia last spring.