KEMEROVO, Russia -- A criminal case against Russian blogger Dmitry Solovyov, who accused of inciting hatred in his blog entries, has been closed due to a lack of evidence, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
Solovyov today received a letter informing him of the decision, which was made by a court in the central city of Kemerovo on December 31.
Two groups of experts -- linguists from Moscow and Tomsk -- said they found no evidence of extremism in five LiveJournal blog posts by Solovyov.
Solovyov was charged under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code of "inciting hatred and humiliating the human dignity of individual social groups" for his critical accounts of police and the Russian Federal Security Service.
If found guilty, Solovyov could have been sentenced to up to two years in prison.
His case was in the courts for 18 months.