A native of Chechnya has been sentenced to three years in a penal colony over a shahada inscription on his car window.

The 2nd Western District Military Court has sentenced a 37-year-old native of Chechnya, who was living in Moscow, to three years in a general regime penal colony over a shahada inscription on his car window. This was reported by Mediazona, citing a source familiar with the case.

The Moscow resident was prosecuted under the article on justifying terrorism (Art. 205.2 of the Criminal Code). The case was launched following a report by an officer from the Preobrazhensky Investigation Department in Moscow, who was monitoring social media.

According to lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov, the original reason for the prosecution was the man’s repost of a video featuring the Taliban on VKontakte. In April this year, the Supreme Court suspended the ban on the Taliban’s activities in Russia.

Akhilgov suggested that after this, investigators and prosecutors needed another episode for the case: “otherwise everyone would get it in the neck.” According to him, after the ban was lifted, cases related to the Taliban in Russia should have been closed.

As a result, investigators interpreted the Islamic symbol on the car as an inscription connected to the terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda.

“The first expert analysis, commissioned by the investigation from the Moscow Research Centre, stated that this inscription did not justify terrorism in any way, as it is one of the pillars of Islam. But the investigator was not satisfied with this answer and ordered a second analysis, this time at the Ministry of Justice’s expert centre,” Akhilgov said.

The defence intends to appeal the sentence handed down to the 37-year-old Moscow resident.