MOSCOW, December 13 (RAPSI) – Presnensky District Court of Moscow granted a defamation claim filed by two Moscow judges against The New Times publication, and ordered the magazine and the author of the disputed article to pay 1.1 million rubles in compensation, a court representative told RAPSI on Friday.

Moscow City Court judge Dmitry Gordeyuk and retired judge Yuri Bespalov sought against The New Times and reporter Zoya Svatova 1.1 million rubles in moral damages. The lawsuit concerned an article based on the finding of watchdog Dissernet, which claimed that the Judge Gordeyuk’s thesis was plagiarized from his mentor Bespalov.

The claim was granted in full, and the defense motion for an expert evaluation of the thesis in question was denied.

Earlier, Moscow’s Basmanny Distric Court granted a similar claim by Gordeyuk and Bespalov against Novaya Gazeta and its reporter.

Dissernet, a grassroots group that looks for plagiarism in academic works by Russian officials, has since its inception in 2011 identified what it claims to be the theft of written work by numerous high-ranking officials, including Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, and several federal lawmakers.

Most have denied allegations of plagiarism.