Yuri Khovansky was released from the pre-trial detention center under a ban on certain actions. He was detained on charges of justifying terrorism

Photo: David Frenkel, Mediazona

The Kuibyshevsky District Court of St. Petersburg changed blogger Yuri Khovansky’s preventive measure to prohibit certain actions. About it reported lawyer Alexander Peredruk from the courtroom.

The investigation requested the change in the preventive measure for the blogger accused of justifying terrorism.

Before the hearing, the court received a letter stating that the building was mined. The sender of “BORTNIKOV” in obscene language demanded to release Khovanskiy.

Previously became knownthat three people became witnesses in the blogger’s case, who allegedly accidentally heard his song in public places in 2018. Two of them could have worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs before, and the testimonies of all three coincide verbatim. All three protocols consist of approximately half of the same phrases and whole paragraphs. So, at the beginning of the interrogation, each of the three witnesses said: “I am an active Internet user. I also watch videos on YouTube. “

All three described the song of Khovansky literally as follows: “The content of the song was aimed at praising terrorism and terrorist acts. I remember that the song contained lines about the terrorist act in the theater “Nord-Ost” with obscene admiration for this tragedy. I also remember that the song contained lines about killing children and sponsoring new terrorist attacks. “

Each of the interrogated allegedly asked the person from whose phone he heard the song of Khovansky, “what is he looking at, who this singer is and why he allows himself to sing this”. In each case, the answer sounded the same: “This is an online conference in Skype – essentially a live broadcast, and the young man is Yuri Khovansky, a popular blogger on YouTube.”

Khovansky’s lawyers are confident that the investigation needed additional witnesses to support the version that the song was performed in 2018, and not in 2012. They note that the investigator made a mistake, initiating a case beyond the statute of limitations, and this error “became a trigger for further violations.”