Lawyer Olga Chavdar: "Apparently, Sokolov became someone across the throat"

The Moscow City Court considered a complaint about the decision of the Khamovnik court against the placement of Yuri Mukhin, Alexander Sokolov and Valery Parfenov, accused in the “Army of the Army of the Will of the People” : according to the investigation, they participated in the activities of the prohibited organization, renamed the initiative group to prepare the referendum “for the responsible power” (IGPR Calls). The publicist Yuri Mukhin, the former editor of the Duel newspaper, was transferred to house arrest , while the court of RBC Alexander Sokolov decided to leave the fate of Valery Parfenov on August 21, since he does not have a lawyer at the moment.

Olga Chavdar, representing the interests of Alexander Sokolov in court, answered the questions of the OVD-Info about this criminal case.

How do you comment on today's court order against Sokolov?

- We consider it completely unfounded. It is not based on those documents that were attached to the defense in the process of today's court session and in confirmation of the arguments to the appeal. We introduced all the documents confirming that he could be under house arrest - confirming the availability of money for maintaining him under house arrest, as well as the disability of his grandmother with whom he lived and who needs his help. This decision is not clear to us, although we have one version, why this happened. Perhaps they want to make Sokolov as the organizer of some mythical criminal group, so he is persecuted and will be in custody.

What can this be connected with?

- With the fact that he is engaged in journalistic investigations of high -profile corruption affairs. We generally believe that this criminal case has a custom nature against Sokolov. Apparently, he became someone across his throat and therefore was subjected to criminal prosecution. It's like a punishment. Sokolov has not been engaged in the administration of the site for two years, which posted information that was charged with the investigation as information aimed at undermining the current government.

Could this also be due to his refusal to testify?

- No, this position of his cannot be related to the case, this cannot affect the court made a decision on the measure of suppression. In addition, the investigator did not refer to this in the petition for the election of a preventive measure to Sokolov. And the court did not refer to this in his decision.

How would you appreciate what is formally charged with Sokolov in the blame?

- The accusation is absurd. He did not call for anything. Even if we talk about a referendum, the referendum is based on the law. That is, even if Sokolov called for a referendum, his calls could not be aimed at some illegal actions or at the undermining of the current government.

Will you dispute the current decision?

- We still do not know, first it needs to be obtained, and this will happen unknown when. Perhaps we will present evidence in the case at the meeting on the extension of the content of Sokolov in custody, which should take place on September 22.

Sokolov is now in Butyrka?

- Yes, but on August 21 it will be transferred to the "sailor silence", because it is closer to the investigator.

What is now the status of lawyer Alexei Chernyshev?

-When considering these complaints, he was completely unreasonably suspended, since he was the applicant, acted in the interests of his principal (Chernyshev previously represented the interests of all three accused, but the investigation forbade him to defend Sokolov and Parfenov, so that he currently defends Mukhin- the ATS-INFO ) and, in fact, sent complaints about the resolution of the arrest. We did not see the definition of Chernyshev’s removal in writing. The court did not comment on anything.