Press Release, Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, November 10, 2013

Following his recent detainment in Sochi, Andrei Rudomakha, Chair of the Krasnodar branch of YABLOKO, has been named a suspect in a criminal case by Krasnodar investigators, and is barred from traveling.

Authorities say he had slandered a judge in October 2012 when a press-release quoted him as saying she acted “lawlessly” when sentencing another activist to 15 days in jail for standing with a candle during a protest against election violations.

The said judge, whose name is Yelena Zolotukhina, filed a complaint, and a case was launched, however it never amounted to any prosecution. With the Olympic Games in Sochi getting closer, investigators decided to follow up on this probe a year later.

As part of the case, police detained Rudomakha on October 31 in Sochi, accusing him of failing to show up for questioning, even though no official summons was ever delivered to him. He spent three hours in the Sochi police station and went to speak to the investigator in Krasnodar the following week

The document launching the criminal case names him as a suspect and alleges that Rudomakha, who is also the coordinator of the Yabloko party in Krasnodar region, offended the judge while “speaking on the phone” with a Yabloko party coordinator on November 8, 2012. The investigators do not explain how they know this information.

Authorities also order Rudomakha to stop any travel outside the Krasnodar region and nearby Adygea region because “he can continue criminal activity, threaten other people of the court or otherwise inhibit investigation.”

Slandering a judge (article 298.1 of the criminal code) may carry a punishment of up to 2 million rubles or community labor of 360 hours.

In the past two weeks, authorities have jailed for five days our secretary Ivan Karpenko, detained for hours activists Yevgeny Vitishko and Dmitry Shevchenko, who was forced to spend all night in the Krasnodar airport where the FSB claimed he is a suspected terrorist. Now they are reopening a case that defies any common or legal sense in order to further intimidate our organization and inhibit activists from continuing their work to expose environmental violations, particularly in Sochi.

“This campaign is not just the authorities wanting to silence our organization, but it specifically has to do with the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi,” Andrei Rudomakha said. “Barring me from traveling is based on a laughable pretext and only has one goal in mind – to control and limit my activities and movements.”

Document launching the criminal case against Andrei Rudomakha: http://ewnc.org/files/repress/UD-384574/2013-12-03_Post_UD-384574.pdf