MOSCOW, April 11 (RAPSI) - Moscow imam Makhmud Velitov pleaded not guilty to justifying terrorism, RAPSI reports from the Moscow District Military Court on Tuesday.

Lawyer Dagir Khasavov told RAPSI earlier that he was going to call high-ranking religious figures of Islam as witnesses in this case and to conduct an additional complex psychological-linguistic examination. He added that none of the books seized from Yardam mosque and the imam’s home contained signs of extremism.

Investigators have reclassified charges against Velitov from “public justifying terrorism with the use of mass media” to “public calls to terrorist activity or justifying terrorism.” His house arrest has been therefore replaced with travel restrictions, the lawyer said.

On September 23, 2013, Velitov, being a council chair and imam of a religious organization, made a public speech justifying activity of one of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami terrorist organization’s members during a prayer in a Moscow mosque, according to the Investigative Committee. This organization has been banned by Russia’s Supreme Court.

According to the forensic examination, the imam’s speech contained a set of psychological and linguistic features of justifying terrorist activities. Defense insisted that Velitov had performed a religious ritual allowed by canons of Islam regarding a deceased Muslim.

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 in 2014.