The court arrested an Udmurt journalist and trade union activist in absentia

Journalist, former editor-in-chief of the Izhevsky Observer newspaper and deputy chairman of the independent trade union of workers of the Izhmash concern Andrei Nekrasov was taken into custody in absentia. The Supreme Court of Udmurtia recognized the decision of the Industrial District Court of Izhevsk as legal. The reason for the decision was Nekrasov’s failure to appear for investigative actions. Currently, Nekrasov has left Russia. According to lawyer Vladislav Prozorov, who represents Nekrasov’s interests, the court’s decision was illegal. When the district court made the decision, according to the lawyer, it did not have the necessary documents confirming Nekrasov’s absence from the country. By the time the meeting of the Supreme Court of the Republic took place on April 7, the documents had already been collected. However, according to Prozorov, the republican court should not have recognized the decision of the district court as legal, but canceled it and instructed the district court to consider this issue anew with the documents collected during this time.

Nekrasov is accused of extortion from the Kalashnikov concern. The second defendant in this case is local opposition activist Sergei Shchukin. According to lawyer Prozorov, the case is “a little politicized”; one of the reasons for its initiation, according to him, was Shchukin’s political activity. Prozorov said that, according to the case materials, the proposal for “cooperation” came from the concern itself: Nekrasov and Shchukin were offered money so that there would be no publications in the press about violations of workers’ rights. The negotiations, which took place in several stages, were recorded.

OVD-Info