The lawyers of the former executive director of the liquidated movement “Open Russia” Andrei Pivovarov asked to postpone the consideration of his criminal case from Krasnodar, where he was detained, to St. Petersburg. The corresponding petition was made today during the court session on the extension of the arrest of Mr. Pivovarov.
“First, we do not trust the Leninsky Court of Krasnodar. Secondly, if we proceed from the logic of the investigation, the bulk of the events described in the case took place in St. Petersburg, witnesses live there, so we insist on changing the territorial jurisdiction of the case, ”explained lawyer Sergei Badamshin. The petition to transfer the case to the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg must be considered by the Krasnodar Regional Court.
At today’s meeting of the Leninsky District Court, where the case was received on October 29, the arrest of Andrei Pivovarov was extended for another six months – until April 29, 2022. As Mr. Badamshin told Kommersant, the date of the commencement of the consideration of the case on the merits has not yet been determined.
Recall that the former executive director of the Open Russia movement (liquidated in May 2021), Andrei Pivovarov, is accused of leading an organization recognized as undesirable in Russia (Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code). The defendant and his defense insist that Open Russia could not be recognized as undesirable, since it was founded in Russia by citizens of the Russian Federation, and the status of undesirable can only be assigned to a foreign organization. The investigation believes that the domestic “Open Russia” actually operated under the control of the British organizations Open Russia Civic Movement and Otkrytaya Rossia created by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which were declared undesirable in 2017.
More details about the case are in the material of Kommersant, “Unwanted Status”.
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