Moscow court arrests the Other Russia activist who splashed water in prosecutor's face

Today, the Tver Court of Moscow has sanctioned two-month custody of Dmitry Putenikhin, an activist of the Other Russia, on charges of threatening the life of a state officer, who administered justice.

Let us remind you that on October 28, Dmitry Putenikhin splashed water in the face of Prosecutor Alexei Smirnov, who represented the state prosecution at the trial on the riots in Manege Square in Moscow. According to investigators, the activist also shouted out: "Death to prosecutors!"; and that was qualified as a threat to the life of the public prosecutor. The young man himself claims that he shouted: "We'll never forget and never forgive." He and several other activists were detained. The public prosecutor filed a complaint to the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) about threats to his life.

The Judge of the Tver District Court has ruled to arrest Dmitry Putenikhin, the activist of the Other Russia till December 30, 2011. All the defence's motions were dismissed, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

On October 30, the investigatory authorities instituted a criminal case against Dmitry Putenikhin under Part 2, Article 296, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (threat to the life of a state official), which stipulates up to two years of imprisonment.

Initially, investigators had turned to the magistrate court with an administrative suit against Dmitry Putenikhin on charges of disorderly conduct (Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code); however, on October 29, the Judge returned the materials for revision; and then a criminal case was instituted.

According to the lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina, a criminal case against Dmitry Putenikhin was unjustified. She argues that Putenikhin's actions had clearly no crime attributes. In her opinion, if Prosecutor Alexei Smirnov finds himself insulted, he may file a lawsuit to a civil court to protect his honour, dignity and business reputation, the Radio "Echo Moskvy" reports.

Let us note here that Dmitry Putenikhin (aka Matvei Krylov) is a supporter of Eduard Limonov, the leader of the Other Russia; and he repeatedly participated in peaceful captures of buildings. He was arrested for 8 days for attempting to enter the building of the State Duma; in October 2009, he was sentenced under Article 282.2 (participation in activities of organization recognized as extremist) for peaceful capture of the reception office of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and convicted to one-year conditional imprisonment with probation period of two years. The probation period ended two days before the action at the Tver Court.

When the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) was banned in 2007, Dmitry Putenikhin was a member of the oppositional coalition "The Other Russian" (from 2010 - of the unregistered party of the same name); he participated in "Marches of Dissent" in Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Voronezh. He is a member of the organizing committee of the "Strategy-31". Besides, Dmitry Putenikhin initiated the revival of " Mayakovsky's readings" - a tradition to read poetry at the monument to Mayakovsky in Triumphal Square. Just before his arrest, Dmitry Putenikhin organized the exhibition project "Bunker" about the history of the NBP.