The Petrozavodsk City Court dismissed the criminal case for “discrediting” the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code) against a local resident, the OVD-Info project reported. Mediazona discovered a court card on the court website in the name of Artem Sokolov. The mediazona court press service confirmed the name of the accused.
A resident of Petrozavodsk was given a court fine in the amount of 50 thousand rubles.
The court was told that a criminal case was opened against Sokolov because of posts on VKontakte. In November, as OVD-Info writes, security forces conducted a search in his apartment, and before that the man was fined 30 thousand rubles under the administrative article about “discrediting” the army (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). Posts on VKontakte also became the reason for the protocol.
The investigator asked to drop the criminal case against Sokolov, since he “considered his position and realized that he was wrong, which he reported on his page on VKontakte.” In addition, as the press service of the court said, the man “provided charitable assistance to the fund "We will help children and combat veterans"«.