Russian court arrests three schoolchildren accused of sabotage on railway

Three underage students of one of the secondary schools were taken into custody by the decision of the Leninsky District Court of Novosibirsk.

They are accused of committing sabotage on the railway, according to the website of the court, Top War reports.

Earlier, the court received a petition from the investigator for particularly important cases of the Eastern Interregional Investigation Department on Transport of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. He asked to choose as a preventive measure for minors accused of committing sabotage, detention.

The court granted the petition for the investigation. The teenagers will be kept in a pre-trial detention centre until July 12, 2023, after which they will either be sentenced, their detention period will be extended for the duration of the investigation, or another preventive measure will be chosen.

According to the investigation, the three defendants, who are schoolchildren of one of the general educational institutions in the region, set fire to a relay cabinet on the Berdsk-Sower stretch on the evening of April 23. Naturally, would-be saboteurs were soon found. They were charged under paragraph "a" of part 2 of article 281 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Sabotage".

For the commission of this crime by a group of persons by prior agreement, a term of 12 to 20 years in prison is provided. But, since the accused are minors, the term of imprisonment for them cannot exceed 10 years. Nevertheless, these are years in a colony and a criminal conviction under such a serious article.

Recall that earlier the Security Council of the Russian Federation drew attention to the active involvement of young Russians, including minors, by the Ukrainian special services in committing acts of sabotage, primarily at transport infrastructure facilities, including railways. Since the beginning of 2023 alone, more than 100 such crimes involving minors and young people have been identified.