MOSCOW: A Russian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by former separatist commander in Ukraine and nationalist blogger Igor Girkin to be freed from pre-trial detention in Moscow.
Girkin, a high-profile critic of the Kremlin’s military strategy in Ukraine, was detained in July and remanded in custody on extremism charges. He faces up to five years in prison.
Speaking in Moscow City Court, Judge Yulia Komleva said that the earlier decision of a Moscow court to remand Girkin, 52, in custody would remain unchanged.
At the hearing, Girkin said he had no plans to flee, pointing to a decision of a Dutch court to jail him for life in absentia, and complained of poor health.
In 2022, Girkin was one of three men sentenced by a Dutch court to life imprisonment over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.
“I have no reason to hide from the court and investigation,” he said.
The hearing came after Yevgeny Prigozhin, a mercenary chief and firebrand critic of Russia’s military leadership, died last week in a plane crash. The Kremlin dismissed claims it was involved.
Russia has detained thousands of protesters who demonstrated against the Kremlin’s decision to initiate large-scale hostilities in Ukraine last year.
But authorities are now also clamping down on hard-line nationalists angry about the Russian military’s strategy in Ukraine.
Those tension spilled over in June when Prigozhin ordered his troops to march on Moscow and unseat Russia’s military leadership.
Girkin — better known by his alias Igor Strelkov — was arrested following a series of posts critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He was a key leader of pro-Russian forces when fighting broke out between separatists and Ukrainian forces in the east of the country in 2014.
Criticism of Russia’s assault on Ukraine has been outlawed and all key liberal opposition figures are either behind bars or in exile.
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Russia upholds detention of former separatist commander
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Russia upholds detention of former separatist commander
- Girkin, a high-profile critic of the Kremlin’s military strategy in Ukraine, was detained in July and remanded in custody on extremism charges
- At the hearing, Girkin said he had no plans to flee, pointing to a decision of a Dutch court to jail him for life in absentia, and complained of poor health
Contaminated water kills 9 and hospitalizes 200 in India’s Indore city
NEW DELHI: At least nine people have died and more than 200 have been hospitalized in the central Indian city of Indore after a diarrhea outbreak that officials said was linked to contaminated drinking water, according to a lawmaker and local health authorities.
Kailash Vijayvargiya, a lawmaker, said nine people had died in Indore.
Indore’s chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters by phone that drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline.
“I cannot say anything on the death toll but yes over 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals of the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited,” Hasani said.
Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.
“We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water and that point has been fixed,” Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.
Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state, has been named India’s cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.
Kailash Vijayvargiya, a lawmaker, said nine people had died in Indore.
Indore’s chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters by phone that drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline.
“I cannot say anything on the death toll but yes over 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals of the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited,” Hasani said.
Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.
“We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water and that point has been fixed,” Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.
Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state, has been named India’s cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.
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