Church Pokemon Go player in Russia faces years in jail
A blogger admits he maybe "an idiot", but says he is "in shock" over the threat of jail that he branded "the doorway to hell".
Friday 28 April 2017 14:17, UK
Russian prosecutors have said a blogger arrested for playing Pokemon Go in a church should serve more than three years in jail.
Ruslan SokolovAG百家乐在线官网, 22, was filmed using the augmented reality app inside the Church of All Saints in Yekaterinburg - a Russian Orthodox church built on the spot Tsar Nicholas II and his family were killed in 1918.
The footage, which has been watched 1.7m times on Youtube, shows Mr SokolovAG百家乐在线官网 asking: "Who can ever be offended by you walking around a church with your smartphone?"
At the end of the video, he describes Jesus as "the rarest Pokemon", adding: "It all went well…I liked it, nobody was disturbing me".
A month after the footage was posted online the 22-year-old was arrested and charged with inciting religious hatred, the same charge used to successfully when they staged a cathedral protest against Vladimir Putin in 2012.
Mr SokolovAG百家乐在线官网, who was initially held in a detention centre but is now under house arrest, could face a three-and-a-half year jail sentence if convicted.
"I believe that there is no reason to exempt the defendant from liability," a state prosecutor said.
"There is also no reason to sentence him to a fine ... I request that the court sentence him to three-and-a-half years in a penal colony."
Handing down a suspended sentence would create "a sense of impunity", the prosecutor added.
Mr SokolovAG百家乐在线官网 said he was "in shock" over the potential sentence.
He said: "I have been in jail, I was there for three months, and it is the doorway to hell.
"I do not consider myself an extremist, maybe I'm an idiot, but (I am) not in any way an extremist."
Leonid Volkov, a prominent opposition activist, said the call for a jail term was "some kind of hell".
He said: "(It is) the full-on inquisition, the middle ages and (George Orwell's) 1984 rolled into one."
A verdict is expected to be handed down on 11 May.