MOSCOW. Nov 12 (Interfax) - The Russian branch of the Aum Shinrikyo international terrorist organization (banned in Russia) has been added to the federal list of terrorist organizations, the list on the Federal Security Service's website was updated on Tuesday.
As reported, the Second Western District Military Court branded the branch terrorist.
In April 2021, the military court upheld the sentence on ringleader of the banned Russian cell of Aum Shinrikyo Mikhail Ustyantsev, convicted of establishing a terrorist network on the Russian territory.
In late November 2020, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Ustyantsev to 15 years in a high-security penitentiary on counts of forming a terrorist network, organizing operations of a terrorist network, forming a religious or civic group the activity of which involved violence towards citizens or other ways of causing harm to their health, and leadership in such a group.
On May 1, 2018, FSB officers prevented Ustyantsev from organizing another meeting of followers. He was arrested later.
According to investigators, Ustyantsev was in charge of the Russian branch of Aum Shinrikyo, operations of which were banned by a ruling of the Russian Supreme Court in 2016. The Russian Investigative Committee said he organized the dissemination of the religious doctrine among residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd and other cities, "inciting rank-and-file followers to make donations, which he transferred to heads of the Aum Shinrikyo terrorist network, thus financing terrorism."
The court said the cell held classes and seminars in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, the Moscow and Leningrad regions, Serbia, Montenegro, Moldova, Georgia, Turkey and Morocco. Seeking to spread the Aum doctrine and raise donations, Ustyantsev repeatedly visited the Volgograd region to meet with followers, supply them with religious objects and books, teach them practices, and collect over 1 million rubles. He was detained during a visit of the kind.
Ustyantsev's accomplices were put on the wanted list.
Aum Shinrikyo is a religious syncretic extremist sect founded by Shoko Asahara. In March 1995, Aum Shinrikyo members released sarin gas into the Tokyo subway in Japan, killing 13 people and injuring about 6,000. Thirteen sect members, including Asahara, were later sentenced to death. Charges were brought against 188 Aum Shinrikyo members.