The court requires the presence of the person involved in the case of graffiti “Putin is a thief” despite sick leave

The court requires Kirill Skripin, a defendant in the “Putin is a thief” graffiti case, to appear at the hearing, despite the fact that he is on sick leave due to tuberculosis. The man’s lawyer, Irina Gak, reported this to OVD-Info.

Skripin has a hard time going to meetings, and he filed a petition to have the case suspended or for the meetings to take place without him. In response to the petition, the prosecutor offered to call an ambulance, but Skripin refused, since the ambulance would not help in his case.

The man did not come to the last hearing, and therefore the judge decided to issue a summons for the next hearing.

Previously, the court asked the hospital whether Skripin could attend the hearings. The doctors replied that it could, provided that a protective mask was available. At the same time, they explained to Gak that in the request the court only specified whether Skripin’s presence would be dangerous for others, and not how the visit would affect his health.

In March 2021, the FSB reported on the arrests of members of an “extremist group” who were preparing to “paint offensive inscriptions” against the authorities on the walls of houses in Rostov-on-Don. Among those detained that day were Skripin, Mikhail Selitsky and their minor acquaintance.

Criminal cases were opened against Selitsky and Skripin under the article of vandalism based on political enmity (Part 2 of Article 214 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, they wrote “PUTIN IS A THIEF” on one of the city buildings, thereby expressing “obvious disrespect for society.”

Skripin spent several months in pre-trial detention, in September 2021 he was released without any documents or explanations, and in December the prosecutor's office approved the indictment in his case. In October 2022, the man fell ill with tuberculosis, and therefore the proceedings against him were suspended.

Selitsky was sentenced in October 2022 to one and a half years of restriction of freedom and compulsory outpatient treatment in a psychiatric hospital. On appeal, he managed to reduce the term of restriction of freedom by a month.

The judge who heard Selitsky's case in the first instance indicated in the verdict that he committed the crime as part of a group of people - that is, with the participation of Skripin, whose sentence has not yet been passed.

• On the day of the arrest of Skripin, Selitsky and their acquaintances, security forces published a video with a story from one of the alleged members of the “extremist group.” On the recording, he said that his radical views “were formed under the influence of one of the Internet communities in Telegram, the moderators of which are in Poland.”