Kostroma official was fined 5 thousand rubles for refusing to provide information to the newspaper “7×7”

Yevgenia Kharitonova, deputy director of the information policy department of the Kostroma region, received a 5,000-ruble fine for refusing to provide information to the 7×7 online magazine. This decision was made by judge Olga Leontyeva, informs “7×7”.

In the summer of 2021, the deputy of the Kostroma Regional Duma, Yevgeny Schepalov, announced that he had given bribes to Deputy Governor Yuri Makov for a total of 40 million rubles. In response, Makov called Shchepalov a fool and a sick person.

On August 31, 7×7 sent a request to the regional department of information policy to find out the reaction of the head of the region, Sergei Sitnikov, to the deputy’s statement. Seven days later, the editorial office received a letter from the director of the department, Iryna Zhabko, in which she said that the information would be provided “after carrying out the appropriate procedures established by law.”

The officials did not answer within the time limit set by the law. Then the editors of the online magazine appealed against the actions of the department’s leadership in the prosecutor’s office of the Kostroma region. After checking, the prosecutor’s office made a presentation to Irina Zhabko, opened an administrative case for refusing to provide information on the deputy director Yevgeny Kharitonova, and sent him to court.

The editorial office also requested data on the verification of Shchepalov’s application in the department of the Investigative Committee for the Kostroma Region. They said that the information was not subject to disclosure. However, in Part 4 of Art. 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation states that the prohibition on disclosing the data of the preliminary investigation does not apply to information about violation of the law by state authorities and their officials.

Yevgeny Shchepalov was elected a deputy of the Kostroma Regional Duma in September 2020. In June 2021, Shchepalov recorded a video message to President Vladimir Putin, in which he called Governor Sergei Sitnikov a traitor and announced an attempt to raid the Yaroslavl entrepreneurs of the Kostromadorstroy enterprise he had created. After that, on July 1, he was expelled from the United Russia Duma faction, accused of disrupting national projects, discrediting the party and violating ethics.