Court appoints forensic psychiatric examination of Kuban activist Sokolov

In the Scherbinovsky District of the Krasnodar Territory, a court granted a public prosecutor’s request and appointed a new forensic psychiatric examination of activist Maxim Sokolov, who had earlier been forcibly placed in a psychiatric clinic.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on June 4, 2020, the police detained Maksim Sokolov and placed him in a psychiatric clinic for compulsory treatment. According to an advocate’s report, the activist, who is accused of defamation and insulting a public officer, is deprived of the opportunity to talk on a mobile phone and be visited by his relatives.

In May, the head physician of the hospital sent a motion to the court to stop the compulsory treatment of Maxim Sokolov, the “OVD-Info”* reports.

Earlier, advocate Vitaliy Zubenko suggested that law enforcers decided to “place the activist in a mental hospital,” as they realized that they would not succeed in punishing him in two criminal cases. The reason for the prosecution of Maxim Sokolov was his complaints filed to the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF). According to the investigators’ version, in the above-mentioned complaints, Maxim Sokolov defamed an investigator and insulted a chief of a police department. Maxim Sokolov himself claimed that he was accused of defamation after his request to respond to the threats that he had received on the social network.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.