09:00, 17 April 2010

Liudmila Alekseeva is against severe punishment of her offender

The head of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) Liudmila Alekseeva will not insist on conviction of the hooligan who attacked her to imprisonment.

Ms Alekseeva was attacked on March 31, during the memory action of casualties of Moscow metro explosions.

According to the eyewitness of the incident Ilya Yashin, a member of the public movement "Solidarity", at the moment, when Alekseeva was answering journalists' questions at the Park Kultury station, a man who stood close to her suddenly struck her on the head with the words: "You're still alive, bitch?" "The hooligan was deliberately waiting for the moment when Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Milov and other men stepped aside," the "Rosbalt" Agency quotes Mr Yashin as saying.

"I'll not demand any serious punishment for him like imprisonment. Prison is too much; I'm not blood-thirsty," Liudmila Alekseeva said.

According to the human rights defender, she will be satisfied, if the court sentences the offender to a fine or conventional punishment, the "Interfax" agency reports.