A court in Central Russia has turned down a request to end the compulsory psychiatric treatment of the man, whose doomsday sect that spent more than six months underground waiting for the apocalypse in 2007-2008.
In November 2007, 35 members of a religious sect, led by Pyotr Kuznetsov, went underground to wait for the end of the world, which they initially claimed would come in May 2008. Following the collapse of the dugout's roof after heavy rain in late March 2008, 24 members of the group came to the surface, the remaining left their shelter on May 16.
"A district court in Penza Region rejected a request by a chief doctor of the Penza psychiatric hospital to replace Kuznetsov's compulsory psychiatric treatment with out-patient treatment," the Russian Prosecutor General's office said in a statement.
Charges of 'creating a violent organization' had been brought against Kuznetsov, but were dropped in August 2008, when the court ruled he will not be responsible for the crimes he committed when mentally ill. The court has ordered compulsory treatment for him in a psychiatric ward.
