The Basmanny Court of Moscow issued a warrant for the arrest of Konstantin Lebedev, assistant coordinator of the Left Front movement Sergei Udaltsov, until December 16. The oppositionist is charged under Articles 30 and 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Preparation for organizing mass riots”), which provide for up to 10 years in prison.

Konstantin Lebedev was detained for 48 hours after interrogation by the Investigative Committee and searches conducted the day before. Today, the Left Front activist was charged in the presence of his lawyer Violetta Volkova; he did not admit his guilt .

Why did the investigation become interested in Left Front activists?

The reason for the prosecution of Sergei Udaltsov, Konstantin Lebedev and Leonid Razvozzhaev was the NTV film “Anatomy of a Protest 2”. The tape claims that Mr. Udaltsov and his associates participated in a meeting with the head of the Georgian parliamentary defense committee Givi Targamadze. "Anatomy of Protest-2" is almost entirely devoted to the activities of Sergei Udaltsov. According to the authors, the leader of the Left Front and his associates are planning to overthrow the government. To do this, they are allegedly negotiating through Mr. Targamadze with ex-president of the Bank of Moscow Andrei Borodin, who is ready to allocate $50 million to support the protesters. Another $150 million, NTV journalists say, is ready to be provided by other representatives of big business.

"We are back to the days of politicized witch hunts"

Gennady Gudkov, ex-State Duma deputy: “ I got the clear impression that we have returned to the times of politicized witch hunts. I had a meeting with a number of lawyers, we discussed claims to the Constitutional Court and more. And when one lawyer gave an example weaknesses of our court, he exclaimed: “Is it possible to seriously open a criminal case based on media materials, based on this NTV, and accuse someone of something?” But this is happening here.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the LDPR : “Detaining is not enough. We need to take everyone into custody for two months by a court decision - the procedural code allows this - the court will literally be in two or three weeks, give everyone a long term, 15-20 years, and introduce a new penalty - hard labor or serving a sentence in the Far North. This must be done, because these are the new Bolsheviks. After all, Udaltsov is the great-grandson of the Udaltsov who carried out the first Russian revolution in our country, the beginning of the destruction of the Russian Empire ."

Olga Kalinina

The court arrested Konstantin Lebedev