St. PETERSBURG, January 10. /TASS/. A district court in St Petersburg is expected to consider a petition by Russia’s Investigative Committee for extending through to May the term of custody for Filipp Budeikin, an administrator of the so-called ‘death group’ in the Russian social net Vkontakte, Oksana Golovinova, the press secretary of the court told TASS.
Budeikin is accused of inciting teenagers to suicides.
"The petition will be considered on January 10," Golovinova said. "The investigations agency is asking for an extension of arrest until May 15, 2017."
Budeikin, 21, who had the screen name Filipp Lis, was detained in the Moscow region on November 15 and taken to St Petersburg the next day for an initial period of two months. The prosecutors issued official charges to him under Article 110 of Russia’s Criminal Code in a week’s time.
He was the administrator of one of the so-called death groups in Vkontakte that overtly promoted suicides among adolescents.
Investigative actions taken so far have shown that fifteen teenagers who were involved in eight closed communities in Vkontakte committed suicide in different parts of Russia and another five teenagers did not get through to the end with their intentions.
Operatives have done searches in the Krasnodar territory, the republics of Komi and Bashkortostan, Moscow, Volgograd, Tula, Kremerovo, Novosibirsk, and Omsk regions in connection with the case.
The St Petersburg branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee said earlier the investigators had questioned ten administrators and members of death groups earlier and some of them had given evidenced against Budeikin. They confirmed he had enticed adolescents to suicidal actions.