Court fines Ingush politician for discrediting armed forces

The Magas District Court found Vakha Kartoev, the head of the regional branch of the “Civil Initiative” Party, guilty of discrediting the armed forces and imposed a fine of 40,000 roubles for a pacifist post on a social media outlet.

Today, advocate Magomed-Basir Ozdoev has informed the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent that the court found Vakha Kartoev, the head of the regional branch of the “Civil Initiative” Party, guilty of posting a pacifist post on the page of the party’s Ingush branch on Instagram* on February 24, which, according to the court, discredited the Russian Armed Forces (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). According to the advocate, Vakha Kartoev pleaded not guilty.

“Vakha Kartoev has noted that the page of the party’s Ingush branch on Instagram* has more than five users who make posts, and he is not among those users,” Magomed-Basir Ozdoev said.

The advocate emphasizes there is no evidence of the Vakha Kartoev’s guilt in the case file, “that it was him who published the post.” “But the court just made a decision and fined the person,” the defender said.

According to the advocate, an appeal against the decision of the court has already been filed.

* On March 21, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned in Russia the activities of Meta Company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp because of extremist activities.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 15, 2022 at 05:04 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.