Jail sentence for National Bolshevik who called to end Latvia's independence comes into effect

RIGA - A jail sentence given to Latvia's self-styled National Bolshevik Beness Aijo for calls to end Latvia's independence has come into effect after the Supreme Court rejected his cassation appeal, LETA was told at the court. 

The Riga Vidzeme District Court earlier handed down a jail sentence of two years and six months plus a year under probation to Aijo.

Aijo was found guilty of public calls to turn against the Latvian state and to end Latvia's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In February 2015, Riga Vidzeme District Court put Aijo on a list of wanted criminals for public calls to overthrow Latvia’s entire economic and political system. Aijo was supposed to stand trial in Latvia but he fled to eastern Ukraine where he joined Kremlin-backed separatist separatist fighters.

In July 2019, the State Security Service asked the prosecution office of the Riga judicial district to prosecute Aijo for illegal participation in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.

In the same year, Aijo was briefly detained in the village of Yarensk in Russia's Arkhangelsk region where he had arrived to support environmental activists protesting against development of a landfill.

In October 2021, Riga Regional Court upheld the jail sentence given to Aijo by the district court.