A court in Vladivostok extended the detention period of Communist Party deputy Artem Samsonov. The politician reported this on his Telegram channel.
Samsonov is accused of committing violent acts of a sexual nature against a person under fourteen years of age (clause “b”, part 4 of article 132 of the Criminal Code). According to the investigation, the deputy, “while on the territory of the recreation center <...> while communicating with an 11-year-old child, showed him an object of an intimate nature and conveyed to him information about its purpose.” The politician is charged with an episode when he allegedly showed an 11-year-old boy a dildo.
Samsonov himself claims that he is being persecuted for political reasons. “The investigation has already found out that the boy had never seen me before, just like I had never seen him. Billings based on the location of our phones never overlapped. And I was denied an independent polygraph examination. I demand a polygraph (lie detector) examination of my testimony. I am being persecuted because I am a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. I am being kept in custody so that I cannot take part in meetings of the Legislative Assembly of the Primorsky Territory. Despite this, even from the pre-trial detention center I send parliamentary requests and participate in meetings of my committee,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.
On November 17, security forces came to Samsonov with a search , after which he was placed in a temporary detention center until his trial, scheduled for November 18. But that day the hearing did not take place: Samsonov became ill and was taken from the courthouse by ambulance.
On November 19, by decision of the Frunzensky District Court in Vladivostok, the deputy was sent to a pre-trial detention center.