75-year-old Russian scholar who spent 10 months in pretrial detention on suspicious treason charges moved to hospital

75-year-old engineering researcher Viktor Kudryavtsev, who has been in pretrial detention since July 2018 on treason charges, has been moved from the Lefortovo pretrial detention center to a state-owned hospital, his attorney Yevgeny Smirnov told TASS. Kudryavtsev stands accused of sending confidential information to a Belgian institute; his lawyers have argued that he had not had access to the information in question for more than 20 years.

Smirnov did not know why Kudryavtsev had been moved. He suggested that the shift may have been based on an April decision by the European Court of Human Rights demanding that the scholar be sent to a hospital for examination and treatment; Russia’s Justice Ministry had announced that it would act on the ruling by May 6. Smirnov also conjectured that his client’s condition may have obstructed the detention center’s ability to keep him under guard. The press service of Russia’s penitentiary system announced that Kudryavtsev himself had requested the transfer.

Smirnov said the engineer is being held under stricter conditions in Moscow’s Yeramishantsev Hospital than he had been in detention. Another of his attorneys, Ivan Pavlov, added that the doctors at the hospital “are dependent in a way on the penitentiary system” and argued that Kudryavtsev should be moved to an independent hospital.