Former DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov is being transferred to a colony
Former Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Igor Strelkov (Girkin) has begun to be transferred to a penal colony to serve his sentence. He was detained in July 2023.
“They started transporting him, we found out about this in the pre-trial detention center when, during our visit, they told us that he was no longer here. We don’t know yet what the end point of the stage will be,” said his lawyer Gadzhi Aliyev.
Wife of former minister Miroslava Reginska clarifiedthat there is no information about which colony he was sent to.
Strelkov convicted of calls for extremist activity
On January 25, the Moscow City Court sentenced Strelkov to four years in prison. The ex-minister was accused of committing a crime under Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Public calls for extremist activities”) for two posts on Telegram.
The prosecution claims that in May 2022, Strelkov read a post on the page of a certain Mikhailov that military personnel of the DPR People’s Militia Corps were not provided with monetary allowances. The ex-minister disseminated this information.
A statement against the ex-minister was written by a doctor at the Wagner PMC, a former deputy of the Yaroslavl municipality, Dmitry Petrovsky. According to him, he considers Strelkov a “military Blinovskaya” because he allegedly collects large donations “to help our guys” and does not account for the funds spent. The last straw, according to Petrovsky, was Strelkov’s offensive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Lawyer Alexander Molokhov, in turn, stated in court, that Strelkov admitted publishing two posts on Telegram: he expressed his point of view on issues related to Crimea, as well as on allowances for military personnel.
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Strelkov did not admit guilt
During the first court hearing on the merits of his criminal case, Strelkov did not admit guilt.
“My client categorically disagreed with the arguments of this document and did not admit guilt,” Aliyev said, adding that the meetings were held behind closed doors.
Molokhov, in turn, emphasizedthat Strelkov did not have any criminal intent aimed at inducing people to extremism. “When posting his publication, he was guided by the motives of quickly prompting the military authorities and the authorities of the DPR to solve the problem with payments and attracting the attention of law enforcement agencies to the incident he mentioned,” he emphasized.
Igor Girkin (pseudonym Igor Strelkov) is a retired Russian military officer, FSB officer. In 2014, he became the first Minister of Defense of the DPR. After the start of the special operation in Ukraine, he regularly criticized the activities of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the country’s leadership. He also gave a negative assessment to the head of the private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
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