Translated material
In St. Petersburg, the accused under the article on justification of terrorism was sent for a psychiatric examination
In St. Petersburg, the investigation decided to place Alexander Merkulov (Pezhich), accused of justifying terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) in a psychiatric clinic for examination due to a publication on VKontakte. This was reported by North-West. MBH Media" with reference to lawyer Leonid Krikun, who defends Merkulov.
The examination is carried out in order to establish whether Merkulov is sane or not. Krikun, in a conversation with MBKh Media, noted that compelling reasons are needed to conduct an inpatient examination: it is prescribed when an outpatient examination cannot give an opinion or if a person has a confirmed severe mental illness.
“When I asked investigator Ustyugov why he ordered an in-patient examination, he replied that he decided so based on Merkulov’s posts on social networks. But I saw his posts: they are about the LGTB community and the Eurovision contest,” MBKh Media quotes the lawyer as saying.
The lawyer added that the investigator gave experts access to the letters that Merkulov receives in the pre-trial detention center, including correspondence with relatives. According to Krikun, the investigation does not have judicial permission for such actions.
According to investigators, from November 1, 2018 to October 31, 2019, Alexander Merkulov published posts on VKontakte under the pseudonym Aleksandr Pejic about 17-year-old anarchist Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who detonated a bomb in the building of the Arkhangelsk FSB Directorate. Experts found in the posts “signs of justification for the actions” of the anarchist.
Merkulov was sent into custody at the beginning of July 2020. On October 5, the court extended his detention in the pre-trial detention center until November 6.
- OVD-Info is aware of at least 15 cases of “justification of terrorism” initiated in the wake of the explosion at the FSB: the case of Svetlana Prokopyeva ; the case of Ivan Lyubshin ; the case ofAlexey Shibanov ; the case of Nadezhda Belova ; the case of Vyacheslav Lukichev ; the case of Lyudmila Stech ; the case of Ekaterina Muranova ; the case of Konstantin Vasilyanov ; the case of Oleg Nemtsev ; the case of Alexander Kovalenko ; the case of Galina Gorina ; the case of Pavel Zlomnov ; the case of Alexander Dovydenkov ; case of Nadezhda Romasenko; the case of Alexander Sokolov ; case of Alexander Merkulov .
- On the morning of October 31, 2018, in the FSB building in Arkhangelsk, 17-year-old local resident Mikhail Zhlobitsky detonated a bomb. Three employees were injured, the young man himself died. A few minutes before the explosion, a message about the attack appeared in the telegram open chat of “Rebel Rebel”. Law enforcement officers opened a criminal case for a terrorist attack.