MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/. Moscow’s Meshchansky Court has sentenced a participant of the July 27 unauthorized rally, Yevgeny Kovalenko, to over three years in prison for attacking police officers and members of the Federal National Guard Troops Service, TASS reported from the courtroom.

"The court rules to impose punishment of 3 years 6 months of imprisonment in a general penal colony on Kovalenko," Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva read out the verdict. She said that the term of punishment would include the days that the defendant has spent under arrest since July 29.

The judge said the testimonies given by victims and witnesses, as well as video recordings proved the guilt of the defendant. That said, the court did not accept Kovalenko’s surrender as proof, since, as Mendeleyeva said, it had been registered with procedural violations.

A state prosecutor earlier demanded that Kovalenko be sentenced to five years of imprisonment. According to the case materials, Kovalenko is charged with two episodes during the rally. During one of them he pushed a police officer in the back, and during the second one he threw a box at officers of the Federal National Guard Troops Service, who were detaining other protesters. Kovalenko himself stated that, although he did throw the box, he did not hit anyone and thus did not harm anyone. Affected Guard Troops Service officer Saliyev and police officer Tereshchenko were present at the court hearing when the verdict was announced.