Evgeny Vitishko's release from penal colony postponed

The Prosecutor's Office has challenged the commutation of sentence to Evgeny Vitishko. According to the ecologist's advocate, the consideration of the appeal filed by the Prosecutor's Office may take more than two weeks.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 10, the Kirsanov District Court of the Tambov Region pronounced the decision to replace the unserved part of the sentence to ecologist Evgeny Vitishko with the more lenient punishment restriction of liberty. The "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus" (EcoWatch) has reported that Evgeny Vitishko will be released on November 21. Meanwhile, the Court has postponed the consideration of conditional early relief (CER) for the ecologist to December 3.

Today, the Kirsanov District Prosecutor's Office has sent to the Court of the Tambov Region the appeal against the decision of the Kirsanov District Court on commutation of sentence to Evgeny Vitishko. This was reported by advocate Sergey Loktev.

"The public prosecutor has not agreed with the Court's decision, since it contains no resolution to indicate in which territorial body Evgeny Vitishko should get registered," the advocate has noted.

Andrei Rudomakha, the coordinator of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus" (EcoWatch), believes that the Prosecutor's Office has not originally planned to challenge the decision of the Kirsanov District Court, and therefore, it "has filed an appeal under someone's pressure."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.