Kaliningrad journalist Igor Rudnikov was left with 550 hours of compulsory work.

The Board of Appeal of the St. Petersburg City Court upheld 550 hours of compulsory work for Kaliningrad journalist Igor Rudnikov. It is reported by Mediazona.

Two people filed a complaint against the court decision on the assignment of compulsory works. The head of the local Investigative Committee, Viktor Ledenev, who demanded tougher punishment, and businessman Alexander Datsyshin, who demanded that Rudnikov be acquitted. Earlier, Datsyshin was also assigned compulsory work, but was later released from them - the court set off the term that he spent under house arrest as a punishment.

The prosecutor's office, which had previously asked to sentence Rudnikov to ten years in a strict regime colony, changed its position and asked that the first instance sentence be left in force.

Earlier, the court found journalist Igor Rudnikov not guilty in the case of extortion, but reclassified his actions under other articles. He was charged with attempted arbitrariness (part 1 of article 330 with the application of part 3 of article 30 of the Criminal Code), as well as failure to fulfill the obligation to submit a notification of foreign citizenship (article 330.2 of the Criminal Code).

The Moscow District Court of St. Petersburg found him guilty under these articles and assigned 550 hours of compulsory work. The journalist himself links the criminal prosecution with his professional activities and articles on corruption in the Investigative Committee.

• Rudnikov was accused of extorting money from the head of the Investigative Committee in Kaliningrad, Viktor Ledenev (paragraph “b”, part 3, article 163 of the Criminal Code), and the investigation considered businessman Datsyshin an accomplice in extortion (part 5, article 33, paragraph “b” h 3 article 163 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, Rudnikov promised not to publish any new materials regarding Lednev in exchange for $50,000. The defense insisted that Rudnikov did not plan new publications about the head of the regional Investigative Committee, which means that the journalist had nothing to “blackmail” Lednev.
• In March 2016, Rudnikov was attacked when a man was stabbed in the thigh and side at the entrance to the Solyanka cafe. The attacker then damaged the journalist's femoral artery. Thanks to the activity of Rudnikov himself, the criminal, who turned out to be a policeman, was found. The court sentenced him to nine years in a strict regime colony.
• In early February 2018, the Memorial human rights center recognized Rudnikov as a political prisoner.