A human rights activist accused of extortion was placed under house arrest in the apartment of Lyudmila Alekseeva

On January 23, the Basmanny Court of Moscow placed human rights activist and journalist Aigul Makhmutova under house arrest in the apartment of the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alekseeva. This is reported by Novaya Gazeta.

The decision was due to the fact that Makhmutova was registered in Alekseeva's apartment. Lyudmila Alekseeva filed a complaint with the court, on February 8 it will be considered, TASS reports . to her According , she was required to write Makhmutova out of the apartment in exchange for taking a written undertaking not to leave her.

According to Novaya Gazeta, Makhmutova was detained on the night of January 22, along with former municipal deputy Andrei Chernyakov, while on night duty at the Committee for Civil Rights. The employee of the Investigative Committee who participated in the detention, according to Chernyakov, extorted a bribe from them in the amount of one million euros for his leadership.

TASS calls Makhmutova accused of extortion. As follows from the publication of Novaya Gazeta, we are talking about criminal cases ten years ago: in 2008, Makhmutova was convicted under two articles - fraud and extortion. Makhmutova was the owner of a stall at the fair in Kuzminki and worked in a local newspaper owned by municipal deputy Andrei Chernyakov. She allegedly extorted money from other owners of the stall under the guise of paying for garbage collection.

Novaya Gazeta wrote then that the case could be related to Makhmutova's publications about infill development.

In 2010, the extortion conviction was overturned and the case dismissed. Makhmutova served time for fraud and was released on parole.

Later, the extortion case was reopened , and Andrei Chernyakov, with whose activities Novaya Gazeta links the persecution of Makhmutova, became another person involved in the case and was detained. In 2014, he acted as a victim in the case of the sale of deputy mandates (in court, he claimed that he was forced to give false testimony), and was also convicted of assaulting an investigator.