The court fined the leader of the protesting truck drivers for the April rally in St. Petersburg

The Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg fined the leader of the Association of Carriers of Russia (OPR) Andrei Bazhutin for organizing a motor rally in April last year, reports . Zaks.ru

A truck rally along Moskovsky Avenue in St. Petersburg took place on April 15 last year. Together with other protesters, Bazhutin was detained, but the police soon released him without drawing up a report. “At the end of December he was detained again, just at the time when he was planning to run for president and hold a new strike of truck drivers,” notes Zaks.ru.

Several witnesses spoke at the hearing, all of them told Judge Ekaterina Mezentseva that Bazhutin was not the organizer of the rally. The leader of the OPR was not present at the meeting. The publication notes that the trial took place without the participation of a secretary, and no minutes of the meeting were kept.

The defender of the truck driver leader, Dinar Idrisov, noted that the video of the run included in the case was edited in the free version of the Moviemaker program. However, Mezentseva recognized the evidence as admissible and ordered Bazhutin to pay a fine for organizing a public event without filing a notification (Part 2 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code).