 Source: HRO.org (info) The civil society activist Sergei Mokhnatkin, who was undergoing a forensic psychiatric evaluation as an inpatient at the Serbsky Centre for Social and Forensic Psychiatry, has been released, Open Russia has reported having been told of Mokhnatkin’s release by the lawyer Kseniya Kostromina, who held meetings with the activist. The lawyer said that Mokhnatkin was told on the morning of 8 October 2008 that his evaluation was over and that he could go home. Mokhnatkin has stated his intention to break his 18-day hunger strike if he is released. The activist has also said that he intends to appear in court to testify in the criminal proceedings pending against him. Sergei Mokhnatkin, the public defender of Sergei Krivov in the “Bolotnaya” trial, was arrested on 31 October 2013 during a demonstration on Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow. According to the investigators, the middle-aged opposition activist “beat up two policemen”. On 19 September 2014, Tverskoi Court sent Sergei Mokhnatkin to undergo a forensic psychiatric evaluation as an inpatient at the Serbsky Centre. Mokhnatkin went on hunger strike in protest. On 6 October, Mokhnatkin’s lawyer, Karinna Moskalenko, filed an urgent appeal with the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for interim measures to be taken by the Court in connection with the Mokhnatkin case, alerting the ECtHR to the conditions of detention in the Serbsky Centre. The urgent appeal in the Mokhnatkin case was filed under Rule 39 of the ECtHR Rules of Court. Appeals of this kind are usually submitted when the life of a detainee is at risk due to serious illness or when the applicant is at risk of being deported to a country where they may be tortured. Translated by Joanne Reynolds |
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