The investigator for the first time allowed the mother and grandmother of journalist Antonina Favorskaya to visit her in the pre-trial detention center. Lawyer Fyodor Sirosh reported this to Mediazona.
Today the Basmanny District Court of Moscow is supposed to consider the defense’s complaint about the ban on visits in the pre-trial detention center for Antonina Favorskaya’s relatives, but the hearing, scheduled for 16:00, has not started.
As Fyodor Sirosh told Mediazona, while he was waiting for the hearing to begin in the Basmanny Court, Antonina Favorskaya’s mother contacted him and said that an investigator called her and said that her mother and grandmother could visit Antonina in the pre-trial detention center — they will be able to receive written permission on Wednesday, May 29.
“He notified that permission had been issued for my mother and grandmother, and said that for the procedure for visiting the pre-trial detention center, contact lawyer Sirosh,” lawyer Fyodor Sirosh recounted the words of Antonina’s mother.
The mother of politician Ilya came to the court to support the journalist Yashina Tatyana, as well as employees of the embassies of the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands. At the same time, according to the lawyer, she will not be escorted to the meeting from the pre-trial detention center.
Antonina Favorskaya was detained on March 17, three hours after laying flowers on Navalny’s grave; the next day she was arrested for 10 days under a protocol of disobedience to a police officer (Article 19.3 of the Administrative Code). Upon leaving the special detention center, she was detained as a suspect in a criminal case and arrested on charges of participating in the activities of an “extremist community.”
The press service of the Moscow courts reported that the journalist is accused of “collecting material, producing and editing videos and publications for FBK.” When Favorskaya was taken out of the courtroom, she managed to shout: “They are trying me for an article about how the FSIN tortured Alexei Navalny!”
On May 3, Antonina Favorskaya’s arrest was extended. At the meeting, the journalist was represented by appointed lawyer Valentina Filipenkova. Her lawyer under the agreement, Fyodor Sirosh, was not in court, as he is involved in another trial. In a conversation with Mediazona, Sirosh said that the court did not notify him of the appointment of a hearing in Favorskaya’s case: “They must notify me 3 days in advance. I have the material, I have read it, but there is no definition, no notification.”