A Russian internet pioneer is handed a 2-year prison sentence by Moscow court

MOSCOW (AP) — One of Russia’s internet pioneers has been sentenced to two years in prison on charges of abuse of office. He rejects the charges and the verdict is seen by some as politically-driven. Alexei Soldatov was convicted Monday on charges related to a deal to transfer a pool of IP addresses to a foreign-based organization. Soldatov and his lawyers reject the charges as unfounded. A Moscow district court also convicted and sentenced Soldatov’s business partner Yevgeny Antipov to 1 1/2 years in the same criminal case. Soldatov is a nuclear physicist by training. In 1990 led the Relcom computer network that made the first Soviet connection to the global internet. He served as deputy minister of communications from 2008 to 2010.