MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) - A court in Russia’s Vladimir Region has placed a book written by a former Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer, convicted of plotting a coup, on the list of banned extremist literature, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, 64, was sentenced in February to 13 years in prison on charges of plotting an armed uprising, by seizing weapons from an arms depot in Kovrov, a small town in central Russia’s Vladimir Region, and using them to spark an armed revolt.
He published a number of books including “Special Operation Ahead” in 2010.
“The text of the book contains information aimed at the forceful change of the Constitution and abuse of the Russian Federation’s integrity. Moreover, the book promotes discrimination against people with regard to their ethnic, social or political origins,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
He was arrested on the coup charges in December 2010, a day after Russia’s Supreme Court had acquitted him of involvement in a 2005 attack on Anatoly Chubais, the then-head of the Unified Energy System power company, and one of the key architects of the 1990's privatization of state assets.
Kvachkov, who was decorated for service in Afghanistan during the Soviet campaign there, served with the GRU's Special Operations Division in the mid 1990's.
