Sentence to Alexander Belov (Potkin)

On August 24, at 12:00, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow will announce the verdict in a fabricated political case against the nationalist Alexander Belov (Potkin), the former leader of the ethno-political association "Russians".

The state prosecution asked for 9 years in a general regime colony for him. Potkin is charged with four articles of the Criminal Code . Article 174 (legalization of property acquired by other persons illegally) was imputed to the political prisoner, since he is allegedly involved in the laundering of $5 billion stolen from BTA-bank depositors by its former owner Mukhtar Ablyazov.

The remaining three articles were charged against Potkin for allegedly forming a community that set the task of overthrowing the regime of Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan. The community, the prosecution claims, included citizens of both Kazakhstan and Russia. These episodes of the case are qualified under Articles 282 (incitement of hatred or enmity on the basis of nationality), 282.1 (organization of an extremist community) and 280 (public calls for extremism).

Potkin was detained on October 15, 2014. Initially, he was charged with only Article 174 of the Criminal Code. On October 17, the politician was placed under house arrest, but on the 23rd, his preventive measure was changed to imprisonment in a pre-trial detention center. In December 2014, the arrested person was placed in SIZO-1 of the central headquarters of the Federal Penitentiary Service, also known as Special Detention Facility No. 1. In March 2015, Potkin underwent an inpatient psychiatric examination at the Center. Serbian. Doctors recognized the political prisoner as fully sane.

Potkin himself stated that he was arrested after he refused to participate in the action against Igor Kolomoisky , the Ukrainian oligarch and then governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region. “It was about organizing the liquidation, murder or lobbying for the arrest of Igor Kolomoisky in France,” the political prisoner said. “Apparently, realizing that I would not participate in such projects, they decided to sacrifice me to Nazarbayev.”