18:14, 2 June 2017

Igor Stenin is back at large

Igor Stenin near the correctional colony. Photo by Yelena Grebenyuk for "Caucasian Knot"

The colony in the Tambov Region, where Igor Stenin, the leader of the movement "Russians of Astrakhan", was serving his term, has received a court order on his acquittal; and Igor Stenin was released.

In April, the Supreme Court (SC) of the Russian Federation ordered the Astrakhan Regional Court to consider the cassation appeal against the verdict to Stenin. On May 30, its Presidium cancelled the verdict and stopped the case because of the absence of corpus delicti.

On May 16, 2016, Igor Stenin was sentenced to 2 years in prison for reposting an article on the war in Ukraine in a social network. He was found guilty of spreading calls for extremism. His defence tried to explain that it was another user's comment to a Stenin's entry.

Today, the original of the court judgement arrived in the correctional colony, and Stenin was released, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

Let us remind you that Stenin's defence had filed a complaint against his verdict to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" considered the Stenin's prosecution as politically motivated. According to rights defenders, investigators, the prosecutor's office and the court "demonstrated an extreme degree of bias."

Igor Stenin was nominated for the contest "Hero of the Caucasus-2015" of the "Caucasian Knot" for his not being frightened by persecutions and defending his civil stand.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.

Author: Yelena Grebenyuk

Source: CK correspondent