In St. Petersburg, a court sentenced a pensioner to 10 years in prison for setting fire to a military enlistment office

A court in St. Petersburg sentenced 67-year-old pensioner Zhumangul Kurbanova to 10 years in a general regime colony on charges of a terrorist act. This was reported from the courtroom by a correspondent of Sever.Realia.

According to the verdict, Kurbanova set fire to the military enlistment office on English Avenue in the center of the city. She admitted her guilt, repented and made restitution. Despite this, the prosecutor asked her to serve 12 years in prison.

During the interrogation in court, Kurbanova said that phone fraudsters persuaded her to set fire to the military enlistment office. In June 2023, they, introducing themselves as law enforcement officers, convinced her to take out a loan, and in August they asked her to help apprehend criminals. To do this, she had to set fire to the building in the basement of which they were supposedly hiding. Kurbanova managed to set the door to the military enlistment office on fire, and it was quickly extinguished.

Initially, she was charged with an article about intentional damage to someone else’s property. Then the case was reclassified as a terrorist attack. Kurbanova’s lawyer stated that the qualification of the case was changed because her client “gave truthful testimony.”

In her last words, Kurbanova asked for forgiveness from the victims, she declared that he was “not a terrorist and did not want to harm, but only to help catch criminals.”

• On August 1, 2023, there were 9 arsons of military enlistment centers throughout Russia. The accused claimed that they were the victims of telephone fraudsters who posed as law enforcement officers or bank employees. Attempts to set fire to military enlistment offices in Russia have been repeatedly qualified as sabotage or acts of terrorism. The last article provides for punishment up to life imprisonment.