Stone, who had never been to Moscow, was convicted in a default trial of defending “aggressive, hostile and brutal” actions against Russian soldiers. The prosecutor's office demanded seven years of a high-security colony for him for “publicly justifying terrorism.”
The proceedings against Stone were initiated over a March 2022 tweet.
The Meta employee's lawyer, Valentina Filippenkova, pointed out that there were inconsistencies in the case files. An arrest warrant was sent out for Stone with the note “he fled from Russian territory,” even though he had never been to Russia. Moreover, during the trial, two articles “disappeared” from the indictment. According to Reuters, the defense lawyer demanded that her client be acquitted. She announced an appeal.
Meduza reports that proceedings against Stone were initiated due to a tweet from March 2022 about Meta's tolerance of accounts wishing “death to Russian invaders.”
As Reuters writes, the Russian authorities initiated proceedings last year without disclosing the content of the charges.
The American agency quotes statements from investigators indicating that Stone publicly defended on the Internet his “aggressive, hostile and brutal” actions against Russian soldiers participating in the war in Ukraine (called a special military operation in Russia).
Last November, the Russian authorities sent out an arrest warrant for a Meta employee and then notified him of his arrest in absentia.
