Russian author jailed on arms charges

Russian author jailed on arms charges

Limonov was cleared of the most serious charges

An ultra-nationalist Russian author has been jailed for four years after being found guilty of arms possession.

But Eduard Limonov, leader of the National Bolshevik Party, was cleared of more serious charges of attempted terrorism and planning to overthrow the government.

Sixty-year-old Limonov was once seen as a dissident writer, having left the Soviet Union in the communist era and publishing some 15 novels and essays.

But on his return to Russia in the early 1990s, he formed the small radical Bolshevik party, which is seen as having nationalist and Stalinist sympathies.

He was arrested in Siberia last year after four party supporters were found to have guns and ammunition.

Prosecutors told the trial in the southern city of Saratov that Limonov was attempting to form what amounted to a private army, to invade an area of Kazakhstan where many ethnic Russians live.

Limonov insisted that Russian intelligence agents had fabricated the charges.

'Political prisoner'

The editor of the party's newspaper, Sergei Aksyonov, was also found guilty of arms possession and was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Four other party members got shorter sentences.

The trial judge in the southern city of Saratov said the more serious charge of trying to overthrow the state had not been proved.

The human rights group Amnesty International says Limonov is a political prisoner.

He has dual Russian and French nationality.