The Basmanny District Court of Moscow turned out to accept the petition of the investigation for the arrest in absentia of the publisher of Mediazona Pyotr Verzilov.
He was accused of failing to notify his second citizenship – Canadian (Article 330.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). He has been on the wanted list since 2021. The investigation claimed that Verzilov was hiding in the Vatican, in the residence of the highest spiritual leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and reported this to the court during the petition for arrest. Leonid Solovyov, Verzilov's lawyer, insisted that this demand was illegal, since detention was only possible if the maximum sentence under the article exceeded three years' imprisonment.
The investigation also informed the court that Verzilov had left Russia while under house arrest. Despite this, the court took the side of Verzilov. It ruled that the article on non-notification of dual citizenship describes a misdemeanor and does not imply arrest.
