Translated material
The court left a civil activist from Mineralnye Vody under arrest
The Stavropol Regional Court refused to satisfy the appeal against the arrest of the chairman of the public movement “People's Assembly of Mineralnye Vody” Mikhail Savostin. The Caucasian Knot reports this.
As Savostin’s lawyer Vitaly Zubenko said, commenting on the situation to a Caucasian Knot journalist, the activist has health problems and being in a pre-trial detention center can aggravate these problems.
Savostin was detained on April 5. He was driving his car to the Free Russia forum, which was scheduled to take place from April 11 to 13 in Vilnius. The activist received a visa, bought tickets and was accredited to the event.
As Meduza reports , the report drawn up by the police states that “Savostin M.O. threw a certain package under the car wheel. According to police officers, this was the reason for the search, during which a bag with a substance that the police mistook for marijuana was found in the left pocket of the activist’s jeans.
According to the defense, Savostin and a friend were passing through the village of Krasny Pakhar when a minibus blocked their way. Masked people ran out of it, threw the activist’s friend face down on the asphalt, and forced Savostin into a minibus. In the car, his hands were tied behind his back with wire and “they carried out some manipulations in the area of his pockets.” Afterwards, Savostin was taken out of the car with his hands tied, and he saw a large bag of marijuana under the bus wheel. Then, the police pulled out a bag of drugs from the activist's back pocket.
“The police say that after the stop, Savostin tried to get rid of the drugs and threw out a bag of marijuana right in front of the law enforcement officers. But everyone understands that this action looks at least illogical and strange,” the lawyer told Meduza. He filed a request for a forensic medical examination to prove that Savostin’s hands were injured at the time of his arrest and he could not have thrown anything out of his pockets.
- In 2015, a court in Mineralnye Vody banned Savostin from engaging in trade. The reason was an inspection of his office by the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the prosecutor's office. The inspection was carried out based on a complaint from a man named Zhmurov, who is allegedly a client of Savostin, while the activist claims that he has never had such a client. Savostin was found to have fire safety violations. Then the activist assumed that the court’s decision was related to his political position and trip to the territory of Ukraine.
- In the summer of 2012, Savostin, together with another local activist Fyodor Zhuravlev, was taken to the territory of the Krasnodar Territory and dropped off there in the forest. This happened after they went on a hunger strike demanding Putin's resignation.