A math lecturer and software developer charged with inciting terrorism has been released from pre-trial detention and placed under house arrest, Russian media reports.
Dmitry Bogatov, 25, was detained on April 10 after investigators linked him to online posts calling for arson and civil disobedience.
The post asked for “rags, bottles, gas, turpentine, styrofoam and acetone,” to be brought to an unsanctioned April 2 protest. Another post linked to Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” in which protesters attack riot police with Molotov cocktails.
The posts were published on the Sysadmins.ru forum under the alias “Airat Bashirov.”
Bogatov, a lecturer at Moscow’s Finance and Law University, is now facing charges of inciting terrorism and mass unrest.
He has denied all charges, saying in his defense that he hosted a Tor node, which allows users to surf anonymously, on his computer.
That means that the IP address that was used to implicate his guilt, could have been shared by multiple users at the same time, he argues.
The Memorial human rights NGO has named Bogatov a political prisoner.
The Presnensky District Court on Monday placed him under house arrest until at least Aug. 31, on condition he would not go online.