A district court in St. Petersburg has ordered a 16-year-old teenager held in pretrial detention on charges of assisting terrorist activity. He will remain in custody until at least December 15.
The teenager was charged under Part 3 of Article 205.1 of the Russian Criminal Code. He has pleaded not guilty and asked the court for a less restrictive measure.
According to investigators, the teenager independently began communicating with a representative of an organization designated as terrorist by the Russian authorities and agreed to transport a weapon from one cache to another in exchange for money.
Investigators say that after the Federal Security Service, or FSB, identified him, its officers continued the correspondence with the teenager from September through October.
On October 15, he received the coordinates of a cache, retrieved a weapon and was detained. According to Fontanka, the weapon was a Makarov pistol and the teenager believed he was communicating with representatives of the Russian Volunteer Corps, which Russia's Supreme Court has designated a terrorist organization.
Claims about the teenager's intentions and the alleged purpose of the weapon are based on the investigators' version of events. The court has not yet heard the case on its merits or found the teenager guilty.