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Russia frees editor after outcry
SAINT PETERSBURG, June 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Russian court on Monday
released a newspaper editor and former lawmaker, who had been held on
extortion charges, after an outcry from supporters and international
organisations.
Igor Rudnikov, founder and editor of Novye Kolesa in the Russian exclave
of Kaliningrad, had been in detention since November 2017, accused of
extorting $50,000 from a senior investigator.
The prosecution had demanded a 10-year sentence for the 53-year-old.
Supporters had vehemently contested the charges, calling them punishment
for his journalism.
On Monday, a district court in the second city of Saint Petersburg reduced
the charges, convicting him of acting without lawful authority.
The judge sentenced Rudnikov to community service and set him free.
“He has been released in the courtroom,” the Moskovsky district court said
in a statement.
In June 2017, Rudnikov’s newspaper claimed that the head of the
Investigative Committee for the Kaliningrad region, Viktor Ledenev, owned an
undeclared luxurious country home.
Several months later Rudnikov was badly beaten and arrested.
Supporters and international organisations had condemned the case against
Rudnikov, with Reporters Without Borders calling him a “victim of a
politically-motivated reprisal”.
Monday’s court ruling is a second rare victory for Russia’s embattled
rights community, coming hot on the heels of the aborting of a criminal case
against Moscow-based journalist Ivan Golunov.
Golunov, an investigative reporter for Meduza, a Russian-language website
based in EU member Latvia, was this month detained after police planted drugs
on him, in what was also seen as punishment for his work.
Golunov was released last week and charges against him dropped, after
supporters, including many influential journalists, mounted an unprecedented
public campaign in his defence.
Kremlin critics say charges of drugs or extremism are routinely used in
Russia to silence rights workers and activists or to settle scores with
opponents in disputes.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1909 hrs