Feb 6, Thursday, 2025, Russia: A Russian jazz musician who was suffering from a serious autoimmune disease and spinal condition is sentenced to six years in prison for anti-war and anti-Putin Facebook posts.
The jazz musician was a saxophonist Andrei Shabanov, who is legally disabled, who was arrested in March on accusations of calling for financial support for the Ukrainian military, committing acts of sabotage, and joining pro-Ukranian military units.
He was sentenced to eight, initially by Prosecutors. The artist pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing again and again during his closing statement on Wednesday.
He is suffering from psoriatic arthritis, an autoimmune disease affecting his skin joints. Last year, at a court hearing, he stripped to his underwear to show lesions on his body. The move was to tell the court that joint damage he had suffered while he was in custody would leave him unable to ever play music again.
A military court in the southern city of Samara found Andrei Shbanov guilty of justifying terrorism and calling for actions against national security. In addition to the six-year prison term, they barred him from managing websites for three years.
During the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he was fined for posting Adolf Hitler’s portrait on the website of an online project commemorating World War in March 2022.
Subscribe to Questiqa.com and Questiqa.us.
About The Author
