The administrator of the public “Police Ombudsman” Khudyakov is planned to be released from pre-trial detention center

The investigator of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for Moscow decided to change the preventive measure for the administrator of the “Police Ombudsman” public page, Igor Khudyakov. This was reported by lawyer from OVD-Info Maxim Pashkov.

As the defense lawyer clarifies, Khudyakov should be released from custody within one or two days. Pashkov identified “a change in the scope of the charges” as the reason for the investigation’s decision.

• On May 25, 2020, the Tverskoy District Court sent Khudyakov to a pre-trial detention center.
• On May 23, Khudyakov’s house in Vologda was searched as part of a case on the production and circulation of pornography (Part 3 of Article 242 of the Criminal Code). After investigative actions, the security forces announced that they planned to take Khudyakov to Moscow. For about a day there was no information about Khudyakov’s whereabouts. On the afternoon of May 24, 2020, members of the Public Monitoring Committee found him in the temporary detention center at Petrovka 38. The police did not allow lawyer Maxim Pashkov into the detention center to see his client.
• “Police Ombudsman” was originally a group on VKontakte , which was created by Vladimir Vorontsov when he was still serving in the police and Center “E”; then similar channels and pages appeared in other social networks and instant messengers. The main topic of the publications of the “Police Ombudsman” is the violation of the rights of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as criticism of the work of the department and its individual leaders. One of the latest high-profile publications of the “Police Ombudsman” was an audio recording of Elena Ustinova, allegedly the head of the city department of internal affairs of Novosibirsk, who gives orders to “everyone” draw up protocols on violation of self-isolation and work “until there are 10 protocols from each district,” while she refers to the order with reference to the resolution of the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate for the Novosibirsk Region, Yuri Sterlikov. The “Police Ombudsman” encouraged people to write complaints and demand an internal audit. A few days later, Sterlikov resigned, and Ustinova was fired “for negative reasons.”