HRW: ecologist Gazaryan leaves Russia and plans to seek asylum in Europe

Suren Gazaryan, an activist of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus", said that he left Russia fearing a guilty verdict in the case about the incident at the "Putin's Palace".

On December 15, Suren Gazaryan said that he had been put on the federal wanted list on a request of an investigator from the city of Gelendzhik. In late August, a criminal case was opened against Gazaryan on suspicion of threatening to kill, allegedly expressed to a security of the "Putin's Dacha".

"There was no sense to stay – you can do nothing useful from the prison; however, our struggle is far from being hopeless," the ecologist wrote in his microblog on the Twitter, noting that he "didn't run away, but left the country quite legally."

Gazaryan has reported that he is now trying to seek asylum in a European country, the website of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports.

The RIA "Novosti" reports referring to Ivan Sengerov, the spokesman for the Investigatory Department for the Krasnodar Territory of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), that the investigation of the criminal case against the Russian ecologist Suren Gazaryan has been suspended because of his search.