13:20, 1 April 2016

HRC "Memorial" announces Pyotr Parpulov political prisoner

Pyotr Parpulov. Photo by Svetlana Kravchenko for the "Caucasian Knot"

Rights defenders have demanded to release Pyotr Parpulov, an air traffic controller from Sochi, accused of high treason.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 22 this year, Pyotr Parpulov, a Sochi pensioner was sentenced to 12 years in a high security colony on charges of treason (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to his defence, Parpulov insists on his innocence. His advocate Oleg Eliseev has accused the Krasnodar Territorial Court of violating his client's rights.

The grounds for charging Parpulov of treason was the information, published in the open press, which he discussed in 2010 with his relative in Georgia, said the advocate.

As noted in the today's statement of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", we can assume "with a great probability that there is no corpus delicti in Parpulov's actions, who had never before at his work had any access to state secrets, and could never imagine reading any secret information on the website."

"The court has failed to specify any motives of the crime, allegedly committed by Parpulov, or any damage, allegedly caused by him to Russia. The secret character of the above information was confirmed by a reference to the secret order of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which was not available for the defendant and his advocate," says the press release of the HRC "Memorial" received today by the "Caucasian Knot".

Rights defenders point out that the 60-year-old Parpulov "suffers from a number of chronic diseases."

"We demand to release Parpulov and stop falsifying cases on treason and espionage," says the press release of the HRC "Memorial".

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