The Supreme Court of Tatarstan received for consideration on the merits the criminal case of the editor «Idel. Realities»Alsou Kurmasheva under the article about military “fakes” (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). Mediazona was informed about this by the press service of the court.
The case will be considered behind closed doors, since “it was filed in court with the stamp “secret”,” the press service explained. For the same reason, the press service was unable to name the date of the consideration of the case on the merits and clarify whether any other articles of the Criminal Code, except for 207.3, were added to the charge against Kurmasheva. Kurmasheva's lawyer, Rim Sabirov, also refused to comment on her case.
Kurmasheva has US citizenship, she worked for Radio Liberty and lived permanently in Prague, coming to Russia for family reasons. In June, she tried to fly out of Russia, but she was detained at the airport and both her American and Russian passports were taken away.
On October 11, the court fined her 10 thousand rubles in the case of failure to notify of second citizenship (Article 330.2 of the Criminal Code). On October 18, Kurmasheva was detained on charges of failure to provide documents for inclusion in the register of “foreign agents” (Part 3 of Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code). Soon she was sent to a pre-trial detention center. In December, it became clear that a case had been opened against Kurmasheva under the article on military “fakes” (207.3 of the Criminal Code). The reason for the persecution was her participation as an editor in the publication of the book “No to War. 40 stories of Russians opposing the invasion of Ukraine.»
In Tatarstan, two cases of military “fakes” were previously considered — against web developer Ruslan Ganeev and individual entrepreneur Marat Yagudin. They were tried in the city court in Naberezhnye Chelny, they admitted guilt and received correctional labor.