The prosecutor asks that ex-director of Open Russia Andrey Pivovarov be found guilty under the article on the leadership of an "undesirable" organization and sentenced to 5 years in prison. It is reported by "OVD-Info".
The defense side asked to take into account the fact that Pivovarov is dependent on a young child and an elderly mother.
“Almost twenty years, all his adult life, Andrei Pivovarov has been participating in the public life of St. Petersburg and Russia,” said lawyer Sergei Badamshin.
Last year, Pivovarov wrote an open letter from the pre-trial detention center to the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergei Kiriyenko, in which he asked him to vouch for him during the election campaign to the State Duma.
“Your guarantee, I am sure, will become a convincing argument for the court to choose a written undertaking not to leave the country or bail. I give you public guarantees that I will not run away, and if necessary, I am even ready to return to prison after the elections, ”the oppositionist wrote.
In the letter, he called Kiriyenko a “former member of the same party” in the Union of Right Forces and emphasized that he campaigned for him in the 1999 Duma elections. “After 20 years, you occupy a high post in the Kremlin, and I am behind bars for opposition activities,” the politician wrote.
Pivovarov was detained on May 31, 2021 in St. Petersburg and taken to the Kuban. He is accused of carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization, the oppositionist was arrested. Pivovarov maintains his innocence. In his opinion, the criminal prosecution is connected with the desire to limit his political activities before the elections to the State Duma. Earlier, Open Russia decided to liquidate, but the organization's employees stressed in a statement that they would continue to "support independent politicians, educate and provide legal support to the victims of arbitrariness to the best of their ability."