Russian faces 4 years for cyber attack
2013-01-14 15:57
Moscow - A 30-year-old Russian man, who is suspected of
organising an hour-long hack attack on the Kremlin website in support of the
political opposition, faces up to four years in prison, said the Federal
Security Service (FSB), which investigated the incident.
The man from the industrial city of Krasnoyarsk in
eastern Siberia launched a cyber attack on the site of Russian President
Vladimir Putin on 9 May 2012, said a regional investigator with the FSB, the
successor to the feared KGB agency.
"The website was under attack for one hour,"
the investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The young man identified only by his last name, Nikitin,
performed the attack using instructions from hacker group Anonymous on blocking
websites, the investigator said.
The attack on the website was organised in support of an
opposition protest in Moscow calling for the annulment of the results of March
presidential elections, the FSB investigator added.
The presidential poll that saw Putin return to the
Kremlin for a third term in May last year despite unprecedented protests
against his 13-year rule was marred by widespread fraud, observers have said.
Nikitin said he is not guilty of the attack and faces up
to four years in prison, said the investigator.
The criminal probe into the hack attack has been
completed and the case will soon be handed over to a court.
Critics accuse Putin of unleashing a tough crackdown on
civil society after his Kremlin comeback that has seen scores of political
activists ending up in prison or fleeing abroad.
