US black-rights activists convicted over Russian links

Four activists for black rights have been convicted of federal charges of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents, the Justice Department said.

Omali Yeshitela, 82, Penny Hess, 78, Jesse Nevel, 34, and Augustus Romain, 38, face maximum sentences of five years in prison, the department said in a statement.

A jury in Tampa, Florida found them not guilty of the more serious charge of acting as agents of a foreign government.

Yeshitela is the founder of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and Uhuru Movement. Hess and Nevel are white allies of the groups. Romain is the leader of a Georgia-based spinoff known as Black Hammer.

A date has not yet been set for sentencing.

According to prosecutors, the four carried out a number of actions in the US between 2015 and 2022 on behalf of the Russian government and received money and support from Aleksandr Ionov, the president of the Moscow-based group Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia.

Mr Ionov used the APSP, Uhuru Movement and Black Hammer to promote Russian views on politics, the Ukraine war and other issues, they said.

“Ionov’s influence efforts were directed and supervised” by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the country’s intelligence agency, the Justice Department said.

Mr Ionov and two alleged FSB agents – Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov – have also been indicted in the US in connection with the case but are not under arrest.

The Justice Department said the Americans all knew Mr Ionov worked for the Russian government.

Among the actions cited by prosecutors was the drafting by APSP in 2015 of a petition to the UN accusing the US of committing genocide against African people.

Mr Ionov also allegedly sought to influence the 2017 mayoral election in St Petersburg, Florida, in which Nevel unsuccessfully ran for office.

Leonard Goodman, a lawyer for Hess, told the Tampa Bay Times that the four were prosecuted to censor their pro-Russian views. “This case has always been about free speech,” he told the AFP news agency.

Yeshitela said after conviction that “the most important thing is they were unable to convict us of working for anybody except black people,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. “I am willing to be charged and found guilty of working for black people.”

Mutaqee Akbar, who represents Nevel, said the defendants planned to appeal their convictions.