A Moscow psychiatric facility has declared former Kremlin loyalist and blogger Ilya Remeslo mentally competent to stand trial on charges of spreading false information about the military, his attorney said Thursday.
“Remeslo is sane. He did not and does not suffer from any mental illness,” attorney Sergei Badamshin wrote in a post on Telegram, citing an evaluation from the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry.
Serbsky’s conclusion comes about a month after Remeslo was transferred there from a pre-trial detention facility in Moscow.
He previously spent a month at a St. Petersburg psychiatric hospital this spring after publicly denouncing President Vladimir Putin for mishandling the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Remeslo later called his hospitalization involuntary and a form of retaliation by the authorities for his critical remarks.
On Wednesday, a judge at the Moscow City Court rejected Remeslo’s appeal against his criminal charges and upheld his pre-trial detention until Sept. 16.
“Russia will be free,” Remeslo said after the ruling, according to the exiled news outlet Mediazona.
That phrase was often used by the late opposition activist Alexei Navalny, whom Remeslo had actively campaigned against, including by filing police complaints.
Remeslo faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian military.
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