Alexei Moskalev, 53, who was convicted in the case of “discrediting” the Russian army and detained in Belarus, was transferred to Russia, a human rights activist told OVD-Info, who today tried to visit Moskalev in a pre-trial detention center in the city of Zhodino.
< p> The court in the Tula region on March 28 sentenced Moskalev to 2 years in prison (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code). At the same time, he himself was not at the meeting, later the press secretary of the court, Olga Dyachuk, said that Moskalev had escaped from house arrest.
Two days later, lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov said that on the night of March 29, Moskalev was detained in Minsk. An unnamed SOTA source claimed that the detention could have occurred «due to the inclusion of a mobile phone in the apartment,» according to which it was possible to calculate him. Later, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus confirmed the information about the detention.
Memorial and OVD-Info sent a letter to the European Commission and the Council of Europe in support of Moskalev — human rights activists demanded to prevent his extradition from Belarus to Russia. They insisted that the man should be transferred to a third country that was safer for him.
Russian security officials took notice of Moskalev, a resident of Yefremov, in April 2022, after he was called to school because of an anti-war drawing by his daughter Masha. Then the man was fined because of a comment in Odnoklassniki under the protocol on “discrediting” the military (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). At the end of the year, a criminal case was opened against him because of a post about the murders in Bucha in the same social network.
Since March 2, the man was under house arrest, his daughter was taken to an orphanage and refused to be given to her father. The Commission on Juvenile Affairs filed suit for restriction of parental rightsof both parents of the girl. The lawsuit was registered in court at the end of February. On April 5, Masha Moskaleva was taken from the shelter by her mother Olga Sitchikhina.