Novosibirsk - The justice of peace of the Oktyabrsky district of Novosibirsk on Monday sentenced the imams of the Muslim Board of the Asian Part of Russia charged with setting up a cell of the banned Nurjular religious association.
An Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom that senior lecturer of a Novosibirsk college, imam Ilkhom Merazhov and imam Komil Odilov received a 12-month suspended sentence each.
"The court did not find it possible to impose fines on them," Judge Anna Pozdnyakova said.
The judge said that the court found confirmation of the investigation's findings that the defendants had organized in Novosibirsk a cell of the Nurjular movement earlier banned by a Russian court. The defendants knew that the movement was banned, acted in concert and propagated the teaching of Turkish scholar Said Nursi whose books have been declared extremist by a Russian court, Pozdnyakova said.
After the completion of the trial, Merazhov told the press he disagreed with the sentence and intended to protest it in all instances up to the European Court of Human Rights.
"The sentence is a reprisal; its purpose is to exert pressure on Muslims. A person who fights extremism is charged with extremism," he said.
The prosecutor at the trial, Sergey Ageyev, told Interfax that he was satisfied with the sentence.
Earlier reports said than the prosecution found the defendants guily and asked the court to impose a fine of 200,000 rubles on Merazhov and 150,000 rubles on Odilov. The defense wanted them acquitted in the absence of offense.