ST.PETERSBURG, August 9. /TASS/. The Moscow District Military Court on Thursday sentenced an English language teacher to five years in jail for plotting a terror attack in St. Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral, a TASS correspondent reported.

Yevgeny Efimov, who will serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony, has been ordered to pay a 100,000 ruble ($1,500) fine. The defendant has pleaded guilty to the charges confessing that late last year he rented an apartment in St. Petersburg and started making explosives.

Efimov, who worked as the teacher of English at a private school, told the court in his last plea that he had been drawn into a banned terrorist group by "people from the Internet" with whom he contacted through social networks.

In December, the man tried to make explosives, but when the attempt failed he threw them into a trash can. However, Efimov did not give up the idea of blowing himself up in the cathedral. His mother later told the law enforcement bodies about his plan.

Kazan Cathedral terror attack plot

Earlier, five members of a terrorist group were detained for plotting terror attacks. According to investigators, they masterminded high-profile attacks on December 16, 2017, including by a suicide bomber as well as the killings of citizens and blowing up self-made explosives in mass gathering places.

This June, a St. Petersburg court sentenced two defendants for plotting a terror attack in the cathedral. Shamil Omargadzhiyev and Aliskhan Esmurziyev were convicted to two years and a half and two years, respectively. The court said late last year Esmurziyev and Omargadzhiyev discussed with Efimov and another man, Firuz Kalavurov, the planned terror attack in the cathedral. The sentence against the latter has not been announced, but the defendant pleads not guilty.