On October 13, the Visaitovsky District Court of Grozny began the criminal trial of 19-year-old Volgograd student Nikita Zhuravel, who burned the Koran and is now accused of hooliganism and insulting the feelings of believers.

The first court hearing was supposed to take place on October 9, but it was postponed due to the defendant not being brought to the trial. Perhaps they did not dare show him to the court and the public because of the marks of beatings on his face. On October 13, a bruise was still visible under his eye.

The court extended his arrest for another six months, and lawyer Yulia Antonova regarded this as a guarantee of protection. In addition, the court considered the lawyer's motion to disqualify federal judge Ruslan Dandaev, who, due to his national and religious affiliation, may show bias. The prosecution representative stated that the defense had no information about the judge's religion and asked that the motion not be accepted.

As reported by Novy Dosh, a video of a young man burning a Koran against the backdrop of the Volgograd Cathedral Mosque appeared on social networks on May 19. The next day, a local resident, Nikita Zhuravel, a student at the Social and Pedagogical University, was detained on suspicion of committing "public actions expressing obvious disrespect for society and committed with the purpose of insulting the religious feelings of believers" (Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that he confessed to the crime and stated that he committed this act on May 4 on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services for a reward of 10 thousand rubles. He also said that he handed over the video recording to an SBU officer and allegedly was also engaged in video recording of military facilities.

On the instructions of the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, Zhuravel's case was transferred to the Chechen Investigative Department. As the press service of the department explained, it was due to “numerous appeals from residents of Chechnya asking to recognize them as victims.”

The court chose a two-month preventive measure, and Zhuravel was transferred to Grozny. As his lawyer said, hundreds of men with posters met the young man outside the pretrial detention center in Grozny, shouting curses at him.

Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko proposed sending the young man to serve his sentence in a region with a predominantly Muslim population after the trial. “This will promote respect for religion and the religious feelings of believers in our multinational and multi-confessional country,” he said. Meanwhile, the article on insulting the feelings of believers does not necessarily provide for a prison term; the sentence may be limited to a fine.

On August 16, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said that she had received a statement from Nikita Zhuravel. He reported that during a visit to the pretrial detention center, he was beaten by the son of the head of the Chechen Republic, Adam Kadyrov. Moskalkova asked the Chechen ombudsman to conduct an investigation, but on September 25, Ramzan Kadyrov himself posted a video of the beating and said that he was proud of his son's actions. The republic's police refused to initiate a criminal case on the fact of the beating of Zhuravel, since Adam Kadyrov is a minor - he is only 15 years old. His young age, however, did not prevent him from receiving the title of Hero of the Chechen Republic.

Back in Volgograd, before the court session that chose a preventive measure for him, Zhuravel asked for forgiveness from Muslims. In Grozny, he apologized again and said that he pleaded guilty to burning a book sacred to believers, but did not admit guilt in a gross violation of order.

Before the first session, Ramzan Kadyrov posted a video with insults addressed to Zhuravel. He said that he burned the Koran, "wanting to insult Muslims, to set confessions against each other in Russia." He also said that Zhuravel spoke of his intention to study and possibly accept Islam, but Kadyrov did not believe in his sincerity, since his eyes "were looking in the wrong direction." According to the head of Chechnya, Zhuravel is a provocateur and an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine. "He lied and tried to dodge other topics, again and again smoothly turning the conversation to the fact that in the future he might want to become a Muslim. The lack of firmness and certainty in his intentions, his uncertainty, and attempts to avoid direct answers revealed the real shaitan in him," Ramzan Kadyrov said.

The victims in the case include 13 imams of Chechen mosques, but none of them showed up for the first hearing.