 Source: HRO.org (info) Professor Mikhail Savva’s defence lawyer has not succeeded in obtaining a relaxation of the conditions in which Savva is being held under house arrest. According to Elena Savva, the wife of Mikhail, who is also one of his defenders in court, a petition has been sent to Pervomaisky district court requesting that Mikhail Savva be allowed to take two-hour walks, to use a mobile phone with certain restrictions, and also to be able to meet his daughter and son-in-law. On 7 February all the requests were dismissed by Judge Valentina Popova, FederalPress reports. Mikhail Savva was detained on 12 April on charges of large-scale fraud (Article 159, Section 3, of the Criminal Code). According to investigators from the FSB, in implementing a project entitled ‘Peace Building’, Mikhail Savva did not carry out sociological research for which a sum of 300,000 roubles was allocated from a grant provided by the Ministry of Economic Development. On 13 April the court remanded Mikhail Savva in custody for two months, which subsequently was extended for the same period on several occasions. On 27 April a rally of about 80 people was held in Krasnodar in support of Mikhail Savva. Later, Mikhail Savva was charged with a further count of fraud: he was accused of receiving money for a course of lectures at the university that he did not give. During the initial stages of the investigation and the court hearing, the court extended Mikhail Savva’s pre-trial detention several times despite numerous appeals by prominent civil society and political figures. In particular members of the Presidential Human Rights Council and Andreas Shockenhoff, a deputy of the German Bundestag, asked that Mikhail Savva be released on bail. Savva’s pre-trial detention was extended for the last time on 29 Noember, however less than a week after this he was transferred to house arrest. Soon after this, the trial was ended on account of the illness of the judge. After a new judge was appointed to hear the case, the trail began over again from the beginning. |
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