The Moscow City Court upheld the arrest of former Kommersant journalist Ivan Safronov

The Moscow City Court rejected the defense's complaint and upheld the arrest of Ivan Safronov, a former Kommersant journalist accused under an article on treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the press service of the Moscow courts.

Thus, Safronov will remain in the pre-trial detention center until May 7.

“Neither the sister and the bride, nor the journalists, nor Vanya Safronov’s friends are allowed to go to trial to appeal against the arrest,” they wrote before the court session in the telegram channel created in support of the person involved in the case.

In February, the human rights project "Team 29" drew attention to the fact that after eight months of arrest, the investigation did not provide the court with any evidence of suspicions against the journalist, nor documents confirming that Safronov could hide somewhere.

Safronov's lawyer Ivan Pavlov also said that a secret witness appeared in the case, who is described in the materials under the pseudonym "Lander".

“Ivan is definitely, absolutely definitely - there are no more assumptions here - he is accused of normal journalistic activity,” the lawyer said. He clarified that the defense came to this conclusion after examining the case materials submitted by the prosecution.

• Ivan Safronov is a former journalist for Kommersant and Vedomosti, at the time of his arrest he was an adviser to the head of Roskosmos. The persecution of Safronov is associated with his journalistic activities, he covered the work of the military-industrial complex.
• Safronov was detained on July 7, 2020 by FSB officers as part of a treason case. According to investigators, he passed abroad information about Russia's military-technical cooperation with African countries, as well as information about the activities of the armed forces in the Middle East region. The investigation believes that the journalist was recruited by the Czech special services, however, according to the defense, no evidence of this has yet been presented.