Experts do not rule out leniency in Vitishko's case

Upon presentation of the Prosecutor's Office, the Krasnodar Territorial Court may rule to soften the punishment on the criminal case against the ecologist Evgeny Vitishko, the experts questioned by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent believe. In their opinion, the change of the prosecutors' position may have to do with the public resonance, which was caused by the replacement of the conditional term of the ecologist by the real imprisonment.

According to Alexander Popkov, Vitishko's advocate, the presentation of the Prosecutor's Office is now studied by a judge of the Krasnodar Territorial Court.

According to Alexei Yablokov, a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and a Member of the Board of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus" (EcoWatch), the court will be forced to respond to the prosecutor's presentation.

He said that the main reason for the presentation of the Prosecutor's Office was in the massive campaign in defence of Vitishko, who became "a symbol of unjust authorities' decisions against ecologists."

Andrei Rudomakha, the coordinator of the "EcoWatch", believes that most likely the Territorial Court will refuse to cancel the changes and retrial the case. However, regardless of the outcome, he believes that the presentation of the Prosecutor's Office is extremely important, since it is "for the first time that a state body has officially taken the position that the Vitishko's deprivation of liberty failed to meet the standards of justice."