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 is a US citizen, worked for Radio Liberty and lived in Prague permanently, coming to Russia for family reasons. In June, she tried to fly out of Russia, but was detained at the airport and had both her American and Russian passports confiscated.
On October 11, the court fined her 10,000 rubles in a case of failure to notify of dual 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). She was soon sent to pretrial detention. In December, it turned out that a case had been opened against Kurmasheva under the article on military «fakes» (Article 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.»
Tatarstan has previously heard two cases of military «fakes» — against web developer Ruslan Ganeev and individual entrepreneur Marat Yagudin. They were tried in the city court in Naberezhnye Chelny, they pleaded guilty and received correctional labor.