Four black rights activists in the United States were convicted Thursday of conspiring to act as undeclared agents of Russia, the Justice Department announced.
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Omali Yeshitela, 82, founder of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and the Uhuru Movement, Penny Hess, 78, Jesse Nevel, 34, and Augustus Romain, 38, were found guilty by a court in Tampa, Florida. They face up to five years in prison, but no date has yet been set for sentencing, the ministry said in a statement.
Indicted in 2023, they were not found guilty of the charge of acting as agents of a foreign government, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
Penny Hess’s lawyer, Leonard Goodman, told local media that they were being targeted for their pro-Russian views and that the case was a matter of “freedom of speech.”
The four defendants are accused of having accepted, from 2015 to 2022, money and support from Alexander Ionov, president of the Russian Anti-Globalization Movement (MAR), known in particular for having organized in September 2015 in Moscow a conference of separatist movements from around the world.
Alexander Ionov was acting on instructions from FSB (Russian intelligence) agents, two of whom are facing criminal charges in the United States, according to American prosecutors.
The defendants knew of Mr Ionov’s ties to the Russian government but engaged in “cooperation” with him anyway, they say.
Among the actions carried out at his instigation, the American judicial authorities cite the drafting in 2015 of a document addressed to the UN accusing the United States of “genocide against the African population” as well as the organization of demonstrations in 2016 to promote it.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, at the behest of their Russian sponsor, Mr. Yeshitela and Mr. Romain also organized protests at the headquarters of a social media company in California to protest what they said was censorship of pro-Moscow views.
Last week, U.S. officials announced a battery of measures, including criminal prosecutions and sanctions, in response to attempts by Russia to interfere in the U.S. election.
