The Presnensky District Court of Moscow received the case of Russian woman Sofya Sapega, who was sentenced to 6 years in prison by a court in Belarus for administering an opposition Telegram channel. Information about this appeared on the website of the Moscow courts.
The case file states that the girl will be tried under Part 1 of Article 203 of the Criminal Code (abuse of authority by an employee of a private security company). It is usually judged by the security guards of supermarkets who used violence against customers. The press service of the court did not respond to the calls of the Mediazona correspondent with clarification of the essence of the accusations against Sapieha.
Earlier, RIA Novosti wrote that the materials of the girl's case were sent to the court to decide on her transfer to Russia. The Ministry of Justice clarified that this issue has been resolved since the end of January «in connection with the appeal of a relative of the convict.»
In early April, the telegram channel Baza, citing Sapieha's lawyer Anton Gashinsky, wrote that the girl's parents sent a request to the Russian Ministry of Justice for her transfer to Russia. In mid-April, the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus granted Sapieha's request to transfer her to Russia to serve her sentence.
In May last year, a court in Belarusian Grodno sentenced Sofya Sapega to six years in prison on cases of inciting hatred and discord (part 3 of the article 130 of the Criminal Code of Belarus) and illegal collection of information about private life (Part 1 of Article 179 of the Criminal Code of Belarus). According to the prosecution, she posted personal data of Belarusian security officials, judges and civil servants on the Black Book of Belarus telegram channel.
On May 23, 2021, Sofya Sapega was detained at the Minsk airport along with the former editor-in-chief of the Telegram channel Nexta Roman Protasevich — the couple flew from Athens to Vilnius, but the plane made an emergency landing in Belarus after a false report of a bomb on board.< /p>