The country's parliament voted to back a bill backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's dominant United Russia party giving three judges the right to rule on cases involving terrorism, hostage-taking, armed insurrection, sabotage and civil disturbances.
The bill will go before Russia's upper house, the Federation Council where approval is expected to be a formality, before it becomes law.
The move came 15 years to the day since the adoption of Russia's first post-Soviet Constitution which reintroduced jury trials abolished by the Bolsheviks in 1917.
Critics said the move raised the spectre of a return to Soviet-style trials controlled solely by judges.
Russia scraps right to jury trial
Nearly fifty years after the infamous Red Army Faction trials, Germany’s maximum-security Stammheim Prison is once...
Denmark’s government was cautiously optimistic on Saturday following Donald Trump’s announcement of a deal on Greenland...
Israel plans to seek additional US weapons and defence capabilities as "compensation" after Washington approved the...
When Israel deployed its Iron Beam laser weapon for the first time last December, the announcement...
