Rostov journalist Alexander Tolmachev sentenced to nine years in prison

The Kushchevsky District Court of the Krasnodar Territory sentenced Rostov journalist Alexander Tolmachev to nine years in a strict regime colony. The prosecutor asked the accused to be sentenced to this term. Tolmachev was accused of extortion: according to investigators, he demanded money or other remuneration from various people in exchange for not publishing revealing materials about them. Tolmachev himself and his supporters claimed that the case was falsified and there was no real evidence of extortion by Tolmachev. Tolmachev was taken into custody in December 2011. Tolmachev's defense believed that the recently deceased Chairman of the Rostov Regional Court Viktor Tkachev, whom the journalist repeatedly criticized in his materials, was the initiator of the persecution. Tolmachev's case was transferred to a court in the Krasnodar Territory, but Tolmachev was convinced that his case had ended up in the Kushchevsky court as a result of Tkachev's conspiracy with the local chairman, Viktor Seroshtan.