ST. PETERSBURG, November 26. /TASS/. A visiting session of the Moscow District Military Court in St. Petersburg has sentenced Atabek Rustamov to seven years in a general-security prison for recruiting terrorists and spreading the ideas of radical Islam through the WhatsApp mobile messenger, the court’s press office said on Monday.

"The court has awarded a punishment of seven years in a general-security penal colony," the press office said in its Telegram channel.

While investigating the criminal case on the charge of assisting terrorist activity, the prosecutors found that Rustamov was the advocate of radical Islam and also "supported in every possible way" the activity of the Islamic State terrorist organization (outlawed in Russia), the court’s press office said.

For the purpose of spreading the propaganda of his views and recruiting people into the ranks of the Islamic State, he set up a group in the WhatsApp messenger and included five persons in it.

"In this group, Rustamov was ideologically indoctrinating its participants by involving them in terrorist activity through beliefs," the press office said.

Rustamov pleaded not guilty, the press office said.