Russia to set tough fines, prison terms for "telephone terrorism"

MOSCOW, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Russian State Duma, lower house of parliament, said Wednesday it had passed in the third and final reading a bill to introduce tough punishment for telephone hoaxes.

The bill on amendments to the Criminal Code sets penalties ranging from fines of 200,000 rubles (around 3,400 U.S. dollars) till a prison term of up to 10 years, depending on the level of the danger of the call and severity of its consequences.

"Unfortunately, the existing Criminal Code does not provide for punishment for systemic attacks," Duma Deputy Pavel Krasheninnikov, one of the initiators of the bill, said in a statement.

"The new amendments are set to become an efficient tool for law enforcement agencies," he added.

For the law to come into effect, the bill has to be endorsed by the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin and officially published in the government gazette or the legal Internet portal.

Since September, Russia has been hit by a wave of hoax calls about planted bombs, which led to the evacuation of various public buildings and caused significant financial losses.

So far, nobody has claimed responsibility for these calls and law enforcement agencies complained that it was difficult to find the perpetrators, who operated from abroad using complicated equipment and schemes.

Earlier this month, Putin signed an amendment to the law on communications, which allows blocking directory numbers of suspected "telephone terrorists." Enditem