MOSCOW - The Moscow Tagansky Court has issued a house arrest warrant for Alexander Pogrebov, who is charged with placing a Ukrainian flag on a high-rise building in Moscow's Kotelnicheskaya Embankment and painting its spire blue.
The court has declined the investigators’ request for the young man to be put into custody for two months, an Interfax correspondent has reported.
Under the court ruling, Pogrebov will stay under house arrest until Oct. 19.
According to the investigators, Pogrebov is charged with two counts of crime: vandalism (Part 2 of Article 214 of the Russian Criminal Code) and disorderly conduct (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code). The court said in its decision, citing the investigation materials, that Pogrebov is charged with a crime of medium severity but this fact alone is not enough to place him under arrest. The Tagansky Court said, citing a decision made by the Supreme Court Plenum, that Pogrebov is a citizen of Russia, is registered to live and lives in the Moscow region, has no criminal record, and also took into account the circumstances and nature of the charges.
In accordance with the court ruling, those placed under house arrest cannot leave their place of residence without written permission from the investigator, except for visits to healthcare establishments. They are prohibited from talking to anyone except their close relatives and representatives of the investigators and penal inspectorates. The court prohibited them from using communication facilities, with the exception of calling the emergency services. They are also prohibited from using the Internet and postal services.
The second suspect, Anna Lepeshkina, has also been put under house arrest. She was placed under house arrest for the same period as Pogrebov.
According to earlier reports, unidentified people raised a Ukrainian flag 3 to 6 meters in size on the spire of the Stalin-style skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment and painted the top of the star crowning the spire in yellow and blue, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in the early morning of Aug. 20.
A law enforcement source told Interfax that several young people with climbing gear had been brought to the Tagansky district police department on suspicion of raising the flag. Preliminary findings showed that these people had walked to the upper floor of the building using the stairs inside it and then fixed the cloth to the skyscraper’s spire using special equipment and then started painting the star.
The young people’s actions were initially vandalism (a crime enshrined by Article 214 of the Russian Criminal Code). However, the press service for the Moscow police reported on Thursday that the case had been reclassified disorderly conduct (a crime enshrined by Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code) and had been sent to the investigations division of the interior affairs department for the Central District.
Marina Gridneva, an official with the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, told Interfax on Thursday the decision had been made the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office “due to the presence in the actions by the persons who committed the crime of indications of disorderly conduct by a group of people for motives of political or ideological hatred or feud, that is, a crime enshrined by Part 2 of Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code.”
Vandalism is punishable by up to three years in prison. Disorderly conduct is punishable by up to seven years in prison in Russia.
Several searches have been conducted during the investigation. Physical evidence has been taken and 11 forensic tests, including chemical, biological, fingerprinting, and criminological, have been ordered.
