4 US Black Nationalists Charged With Conspiring With Russian Intelligence in ‘Malign Influence Campaign’

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged three Russian nationals and four U.S. citizens connected to black nationalist movements with taking part in a malign influence campaign in the U.S. on behalf of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence agency.

The four U.S. citizens charged are Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel, and Augustus C. Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo.

Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel are members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), also known as the Uhuru Movement. Romain is the leader of the Black Hammer Party, according to the DOJ.

The four U.S. citizens are accused of working with Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov, and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov, who are Russian nationals accused of working on behalf of the FSB and the Russian government.

All seven are charged with conspiring to recruit U.S. citizens to act as illegal agents of the Russian government in the Unites States. Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel are themselves charged with acting as agents of Russia within the United States without prior authorization.

Ionov, Sukhodolov, Popov, Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel, and Romain face a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted of conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of a foreign government. Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel face also face a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted of acting as agents of Russia in the United States without prior authorization.

According to the DOJ, one focus of the alleged influence campaign was “to create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine.”

Uhuru and Black Hammer

The APSP or Uhuru movement was established in 1972, with Omali as one of its original co-founders. A website for the APSP lists a party platform, which was adopted in 1979 and amended in 1981, that denounces what it describes as “U.S. and western European political, economic, and military interference in the affairs of Africa and African people around the world.”

The APSP platform also denounces capitalism and calls for the United States and European nations to pay reparations to African countries and their descendants. The APSP platform further calls for an end to taxation of black people in the United States.

The Black Hammer Party was founded in 2019 by Romain, who goes by the name Gazi Kodzo. The organization says its mission is to “take the Land Back for all colonized people worldwide.”

The extremist organization also lists a set of principles denouncing capitalism and colonialism, and stating “the Colonized Proletariat is the only true proletariat” and “only through our leadership can white power, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and all its symptomatic offspring be smashed.”

Alleged Ties To Russia

A federal indictment (pdf) alleges the Russian nationals were in contact with Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel, and Kodzo for several years. The Russian nationals allegedly paid for Yeshitela to travel to Russia in 2015. Ionov also allegedly prompted Hess to draft and promote a “petition on Genocide of African people in U.S.” Ionov also allegedly prompted the APSP to issue a statement in 2016 opposing a proposal to ban the Russian national team’s participation in the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ionov is the founder of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), an organization headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and funded by the Russian government. According to federal prosecutors, Ionov used AGMR as a tool to advance Russia’s malign influence campaign.

In July of 2017, Ionov allegedly reached out to Nevel, who was a candidate for mayor of St. Petersburg at the time. Ionov allegedly requested an interview with Nevel to talk about “reparations” and proposed lending support to Nevel’s campaign, including “campaign finance,” through AGMR. It was not clear from the charging documents if Nevel’s campaign accepted this support.

At Io