A court in Russia has convicted a former policeman for spreading false information about the army to the public because he criticized the war in Ukraine during phone conversations with friends, The Guardian notes.

Former officer Semil Vedel was sentenced to seven years in prison on Monday under a law the Kremlin passed days after sending troops to Ukraine and has widely used to suppress dissent, the AP reported.

In addition to the prison sentence, he was banned from working in law enforcement for four years after his release.

The authorities accused Vedel of spreading information about Russia’s military actions in Ukraine that deviated from Moscow’s official narrative.

In three phone calls with friends last year, Wedel called Russia a “criminal country,” used “Glory to Ukraine” as a greeting and said Russia had suffered “huge losses” in Ukraine, according to the prosecutor handling the case.

Officials believed that these conversations were public because Wedel’s phone was tapped and the conversations were eavesdropped by an investigator. This argument, which Wedel’s lawyer dismissed as absurd, has not been used before in cases involving accusations of spreading false information.

Vedel, who was born in Ukraine, said he was only sharing information he got from friends in the Kyiv police department whom he trusted.

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