Russian guy imprisoned for burning the Qur’an and accused of treason

A Russian man who was jailed in February for burning the Koran has been charged with treason by prosecutors who say he gave Ukraine video footage of military moves.

The office of Russia’s prosecutor general said in a statement that Nikita Zhuravel, who is 20 years old, was accused of sending Russian military base information and video footage of a freight train bringing warplanes to a Ukrainian intelligence officer.

What it said was that Zhuravel had offered to send the information to the Ukrainian intelligence officer.

Reuters could not right away find a lawyer who is defending Zhuravel in the treason case.

Under Russia’s law against offending religious people, Zhuravel was given a three-and-a-half-year term for publicly burning a Koran in his home city of Volgograd.

The defendant was in jail waiting to be tried when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov released a video showing his son Adam beating and kicking him. The video got a lot of attention around the world.

His case had already been sent to Chechnya by Russian detectives. The Investigative Committee, which looks into major crimes, said this was because they got a lot of messages from people in the mostly Muslim area asking to be named as victims.