The leader of an extremist group that carried out so-called "Sharia patrols" targeting people suspected of drinking alcohol in Russia's Kabardino-Balkarian Republic has been sentenced to four years and three months in a penal colony.
The man and 16 other members of the organisation were sentenced by a Russian district court for conducting illegal investigations into citizens they suspected of behaviour that conflicted with their religious beliefs.
Those targeted by the group were assaulted and forced to publicly apologise and promise to change their lifestyles in accordance with the organisation's extremist principles.
The group operated in the North Caucasus republic between March 2023 and August 2024 before being stopped by law enforcement authorities.
The Cherek District Court of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic found the group's leader guilty of creating an extremist community.
In addition to his prison term, he was banned for two years from leading or participating in religious organisations.
The remaining defendants were found guilty of participating in an extremist religious community and received sentences ranging from two years to 10 months in penal colonies. All defendants admitted their guilt.
The Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, a mountainous North Caucasus region north of Georgia, was a centre of Islamic insurgency in Russia during the early 2000s.
By the early 2010s, however, Russian security operations had significantly weakened the insurgency. Other militants left the region to fight alongside ISIS in the Syrian Civil War.
Despite this, the region has continued to witness occasional outbreaks of extremist activity. In 2024, gunmen opened fire on security forces during a counter-terrorism operation in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.
In the same year, Russian security services arrested 15 suspected members of another extremist organisation in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.
The suspects were accused of disseminating radical Islamist ideology and coercing others to join the organisation under threat of violence.
The Muslim-majority Kabardino-Balkarian Republic is home to around 910,000 people.
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