A Russian court sentenced a popular exiled opposition journalist to prison Wednesday for phony news about the Russian armed forces lethal attacks on civilians in Ukraine.Alexander Nevzorov, 64, was the very first popular political reporter and commentator to be charged in March 2022 under a freshly adopted law prohibiting what authorities consider to be incorrect info about the war in Ukraine.Investigators implicated Nevzorov of publishing deliberately false details about Russias shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol and the apparent massacre of civilians in Bucha last spring.Russian officials deny targeting civilians in the Mariupol maternity healthcare facility strike and have declared without proof that the Bucha massacre was staged following Russian forces retreat from the area.Moscows Basmanny District Court found Nevzorov guilty and sentenced him to 8 years in jail in absentia, according to legal representative Alexei Pryanishnikov.Prosecutors had actually asked for a nine-year prison sentence for Nevzorov, a seasoned journalist and a previous member of parliament who was likewise stated a foreign representative in the spring of 2022.
The Basmanny District Courts sentence also bans Nevzorov from administering websites for the next four years.The sentence participates in force the minute Nevzorov is extradited or detained on Russian soil.Russian tabloids declared early last summer season that Nevzorov had moved with his wife to Italy, citing a dripped application for Ukrainian citizenship from Ukraines Italian consulate.Nevzorov has said the criminal case against him was meant to send a caution signal to reporters in Russia.Nevzorov is among the scores of Russians, much of whom have actually run away the country, to have been charged under wartime censorship laws forbiding info about the armed forces actions abroad that does not follow the Kremlins narrative.