Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld a five-year sentence for Murad Dadashev for ‘justifying terrorism’ by sharing content advocating for Chechen independence on social media, which he denies doing.

On 19 April, the Supreme Court upheld the Rostov-on-Don Military Court’s 2021 decision to indict Dadashev, a Daghestan resident, on charges of justifying terrorism.

The Rostov-on-Don court sentenced the then-25-year-old Dadashev to five years in prison for allegedly sharing content promoting Ichkerian independence.

Ichkeria was a short-lived independent Chechen state that emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but was crushed by the Russian Federation in the early 2000s.

Caucasian Knot has reported that official investigations indicated that Dadashev had shared two videos on social media which showed armed Chechen separatists engaging in ‘violent and destructive actions aimed at combating the authorities of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Chechen Republic’

Dadashev also allegedly shared a photograph of Shamil Basayev, an Ichkerian commander who took part in the First and Second Chechen Wars.

The court additionally claimed that one of the witnesses in the investigation had corroborated that Dadashev had expressed dissatisfaction with the current Chechen government.

However, Dadashev has stated that he could not have possibly published the videos as he was in pre-trial detention at the time. He claims that another person accessed his account and shared the videos.

It is unclear what Dadashev was in pre-trial detention for at the time.