MOSCOW, August 6 (RAPSI) – Four activists of the New Greatness (“Novoe Velichie”) movement on Thursday received suspended terms for organizing an extremist community, three other defendants were sentenced to imprisonment, RAPSI reported from the Lyublinsky District Court of Moscow.

Dmitry Poletayev, Maxim Roshchin, Maria Dubovik and Anna Pavlikova received 6, 6.5, 6 and 4 years of suspended sentence respectively.

The movement’s leader Ruslan Kostylenkov was ordered to serve 7 years in penal colony, Vyacheslav Kryukov and Petr Karamzin were imprisoned for 6.5 and 6 years in jail respectively.

The court found that Anna Pavlikova, Maria Dubovik, Dmitry Poletayev, Maxim Roshchin, Ruslan Kostylenkov, Vyacheslav Kryukov and Petr Karamzin created the community for a violent upheaval.

Prosecutors earlier asked the court to sentence alleged leader of the extremist movement Kostylenkov to 7.5 years in penal colony; Karamzin and Kryukov to 6.5 and 6 years behind bars respectively. Suspended terms were demanded for other defendants.

Alleged activists of the extremist movement were arrested in March 2018. Investigators stated that the defendants followed far-right ideas and that their leader claimed that he planned to establish a new order in Russia.

The New Greatness case became a subject of public controversy because the defense has information that the movement itself was organized by a law enforcement officer.