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.
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
Sri Lanka hospital releases 22 rescued Iranian sailors
- Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka discharged from hospital 22 Iranian sailors who were plucked from life rafts after their warship was sunk by a US submarine, officials said Sunday.
The sailors were treated at Karapitiya Hospital in the southern port city of Galle since Wednesday after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
“Another 10 are still undergoing treatment,” a medical officer at the hospital told AFP.
He said the bodies of 84 Iranians retrieved from the Indian Ocean were also at the hospital.
Those discharged from hospital overnight had been taken to a beach resort in the same district.
Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law, and the government had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance.
The island is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk.
Sailors from the Bushehr have been moved to a Sri Lanka Navy camp at Welisara, just north of the capital Colombo, and their ship taken over by Sri Lanka’s navy.
Sri Lanka announced it was taking the Bushehr to the north-eastern port of Trincomalee, but an engine failure and other technical and administrative issues had delayed the movement, a navy spokesman said.
Sri Lanka has denied claims that it was under pressure from Washington not to allow the Iranians to return home, and said Colombo will be guided solely by international law and its own domestic legislation.
A US State Department spokesperson said the disposition of the Bushehr crew and Iranian sailors rescued at sea was up to Sri Lanka.
“The United States, of course, respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the handling of this situation,” the spokesperson told AFP in Washington.
India, meanwhile, said Saturday that it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on “humane” grounds after it too reported engine problems.
The three ships were part of a multi-national fleet review held by India before the war in the Middle East started last week.
“I think it was the humane thing to do, and I think we were guided by that principle,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday.
The Lavan docked in the south-west Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday.
“A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” Jaishankar said.
