Trepashkin recognized as political prisoner

Two international organizations have made a statement in protection of lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin. "Amnesty International" and the American Bar Association call the persecution of Trepashkin unfair and illegal, reports "Gazeta.Ru."

"It is a great step forward, now Trepashkin is officially recognized as political prisoner on the international level," stated Alex Goldfarb, head of the Civil Liberties Foundation.

As reported earlier, in 2004, Mikhail Trepashkin was sentenced by Moscow military tribunal for disclosing a state secret to 4 years of imprisonment at a penal colony. Later, Trepashkin was convoyed to penal colony No 13. In 2005, the Tagilstroy District Court of Nizhni Tagil granted him parole. However, the prosecutor's offices of Nizhni Tagil and Sverdlovsk Region disagreed with the ruling and appealed against it in the regional court. Trepashkin was again arrested in Moscow and escorted to Ekaterinburg. In September, Sverdlovsk Region court overruled the ruling on the grant of parole to Mikhail Trepashkin and returned the case for a new consideration by a lower instance court. On November 24 last year the Tagilstroy District Court refused to grant parole to Trepashkin.

Earlier, Mikhail Trepashkin stated to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent: "I am deeply convinced that this is primarily a revenge for confronting Patrushev, the current FSB head. I think that he is a person who is not capable of ensuring safety of our citizens. It is a man who, by his moral qualities…If someone asks him to do something terrible he can do it."

For reference, after resigning from the security agency Trepashkin became a practicing lawyer and worked at the Public Commission on investigating 1999 terrorist acts in dwelling houses in Moscow. This work served as basis for the book by Yuri Felshtinskiy and Alexander Litvinenko "FSB Explodes Russia."