A court in St. Petersburg reduced the term of detention in a pre-trial detention center for a defendant in the “palace case”

The city court of St. Petersburg reduced the term of detention in the pre-trial detention center for the person involved in the "palace case" Eldar Garipov. This is reported by his lawyer Igor Skachko, who cooperates with OVD-Info.

In August, the Leninsky District Court of St. Petersburg extended Garipov's preventive measure until February 19, for six months. On October 21, the Court of Appeal partially satisfied the complaint against this decision and reduced the term by half: the activist will remain in the pre-trial detention center until November 19.

Garipov is accused of using non-life-threatening violence against a representative of the authorities (part 1 of article 318 of the Criminal Code) at a rally in support of Alexei Navalny on January 31. The investigation believes that the activist resisted the arrest and injured one of the National Guardsmen.

During the rally, the security forces severely detained Garipov, immediately after that the young man was hospitalized. Paramedics who gave him first aid reported the injuries to the police. Then a district police officer came to the protester's home and promised to hand over the materials about the beating to the Investigative Committee. However, in the end, the case was opened against Garipov himself.

The activist insists that he did not use force against law enforcement officers. He is convinced that the security forces slandered him in order to avoid being held accountable for exceeding his official powers.

At the end of June, the Prisoners 212 project reported on the transfer of Garipov to a psychiatric hospital for a month to conduct a psychological and psychiatric examination as part of a criminal case.

• In connection with the actions in support of Alexei Navalny, which took place from January 23 to February 2, at least 90 criminal cases were opened across the country. The protesters were accused not only of using violence against the security forces (Article 318 of the Criminal Code), but also of violating sanitary and epidemiological rules (Part 1 of Article 236 of the Criminal Code), involving minors in illegal activities (Part 2 of Article 151.2 of the Criminal Code), road closures (Article 267 of the Criminal Code).