Watchdog

Russian opposition politician and former lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov said he has fled the country amid concern he could be arrested on what he called trumped up charges.

Gudkov was detained in Moscow on June 1 over an allegedly unpaid debt on a rented property dating from several years ago. He was released on June 3 without being formally charged.

"I am approaching Kyiv," he said on Facebook in a June 6 post he confirmed to AFP as genuine. “Several sources close to the presidential administration said that if I do not leave the country, the fake criminal case will continue until my arrest.”

SEE ALSO:

'This Is A Purge': Russian Authorities Dig Up Old Incidents To Sideline Potential Opponents

Aleksei Navalny, the most prominent Russian opposition leader, was detained in January as he arrived from Germany on charges of violating his parole and sentenced to serve 2 1/2 years in prison.

He said he believed the case was launched to force him out of the country at least until parliamentary elections in September. Gudkov is a former member of parliament.

“I hope that with my departure, the zeal of the gendarmes will decrease. My decision was supported by my family and friends, who also received serious information about threats and risks,” he said in the Facebook post.

Embed share

'A New Wave Of Repression': Kremlin Critic Nabbed From Plane

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:02:45 0:00

Russian authorities opened a criminal case against his father, Gennady Gudkov, a former State Duma deputy and Kremlin critic who lives in Bulgaria, on June 3 over ammunition allegedly found at his apartment in Russia, local media reported.

According to media reports, the ammunition was found during a search conducted in the case involving his son.

There was no official confirmation of the criminal case against Gennady Gudkov from officials.

With reporting by AFP

A United Nations court at The Hague is scheduled to deliver its final verdict on June 8 on an appeal by former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic against his genocide conviction.

The ruling will close the case against the man dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia," who has challenged his 2017 conviction and life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during Bosnia-Herzegovina's 1992-95 war.

These included the massacre in and around the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in mid-1995 when some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces.

Mladic, 78, is expected to be in the court, where he has previously delivered angry outbursts against the West and accused the judges of lying.

Relatives of some of the men and boys killed at Srebrenica in the worst act of bloodshed on European soil since World War II will be outside the court where they have long campaigned for justice.

Mladic has maintained his innocence. The appeal case has been repeatedly delayed by his ill health and, more recently, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court also found Mladic's political chief, Radovan Karadzic, guilty of similar charges, including genocide, in 2016, and sentenced him to 40 years in prison. In 2019, Karadzic’s prison term was changed to a life sentence.

Karadzic and Mladic were among the last suspects put on trial by the UN tribunal in The Hague for the civil war.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP