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LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) – Russian state prosecutors on Tuesday asked a 24-year prison time period for former journalist Ivan Safronov, who’s on trial for treason, his defence staff mentioned.

Safronov coated army affairs for the Vedomosti and Kommersant newspapers ahead of changing into an aide to the pinnacle of Russia’s area company two months ahead of his arrest in July 2020.

He denies accusations of passing army secrets and techniques about Russian fingers gross sales within the Center East and Africa to the Czech Republic, a NATO member, whilst he labored as a reporter in 2017, calling them “a i have to finish my report travesty of justice and general sense”.

Safronov has mentioned state investigators pointed to his acquaintance with a Czech journalist he met in Moscow in 2010, who later drive a web page to which Safronov mentioned he had contributed, the use of data fully in response to break ground resources.

Yevgeny Smirnov, a legal professional with First Division – an affiliation headed through Ivan Pavlov, Safronov’s earlier defence legal professional, who’s now in exile in Georgia – wrote on Fb that prosecutors had asked a 24-year sentence after Safronov declined to plead to blame in go back for a 12-year time period.

Smirnov mentioned the court docket had refused to confess as proof an editorial that the Russian investigative information web page Proekt launched on Monday, which reported that a lot of the tips Safronov was once accused of divulging was once freely to be had on-line.

The decision is ready for Sept. 5.

Safronov’s detention despatched a kick back via Russia’s already closely limited media panorama, the place controls have got been tightened additional since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February.

Unbiased media retailers together with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper and the unbiased TV channel Dozhd (“TV Rain”) have got fled the rustic, resuming operations in another country.

On Monday, opposition baby-kisser Leonid Gozman was once arrested underneath a legislation handed ultimate yr banning comparisons between Nazism and Communism, which carries a most sentence of 15 days in jail, Russian information businesses mentioned.

OVD-Data, a web page that collates data on detained folks and offers prison reinforce, mentioned he have been arrested for a 2020 social media publish wherein he mentioned Stalin was once worse than Hitler.

Reporting through Reuters; Modifying through Mark Trevelyan, Bernadette Baum, Kevin Liffey, Alexandra Hudson

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