MOSCOW, August 2 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Presnensky District Court on Monday sentenced Karomatullo Dzhaborov, a pranker who had played a coronavirus joke in the Moscow metro in 2020, to 28 months in penal colony, the court’s press service told RAPSI.

Two his assistants, who had taken part in the joke, received two-year suspended terms.

Dzhaborov and his alleged accomplices stood charged with hooliganism committed in conspiracy.

Prosecutors also demanded 4 years in jail for Dzhaborov and 3 years behind bars for two his accomplices each. 

On February 2, 2020, aboard a metro train the young man fell imitating a sudden stroke, according to investigators. Following that, his accomplices began crying that Dzhaborov suffers a dangerous virus infection whipping up panic among passengers, the Investigative Committee reported earlier. His attorneys insist that the pranker wanted to draw the society’s attention at the virus problem.