By Andria Kades
RUSSIAN journalist Andrey Nekrasov, held in Cyprus for almost a month following an international arrest warrant by Russia is expected to return to Lithuania within a week.
His lawyer Nicoletta Charalambidou said the procedure to send him back has already started, following Interior Minister Socrates Hasikos’ decision to do so.
“I’m expecting that probably by Monday or Tuesday everything will be ready,” Charalambidou told the Cyprus Mail and he could then leave the country.
Authorities in Cyprus have to inform their Lithuanian counterparts three days in advance which flight Nekrasov will be on.
From his side, the young journalist is pleased with the decision, Charalambidou said, as it satisfied what he asked for from the onset – having his asylum application processed in Lithuania.
Nekrasov’s first point of entry to the European Union was Lithuania, which granted him a residence permit for a year after he left Russia.
Coming to Cyprus for a holiday, Nekrasov was arrested on July 16 at Larnaca airport following an international arrest warrant. He fled his home town in the Russian Urals in March, to escape imminent imprisonment in connection with his journalism and activism.
Reporters Without Borders said Nekrasov, from Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurt Republic, was constantly hounded by authorities for his activities, which included a campaign to defend the rights of workers at the Izhmash factory.
The CEO of the factory filed a complaint accusing him of blackmail and extortion in 2013, at a time when he was writing about the workers’ demands.
He was initially questioned as a witness, but the FSB, the federal security service, placed him in police custody and tried to extract a confession, Reporters said.
As a result, he was now facing up to 15 years in prison.
In February, he was fined 30,000 roubles (€450) on a criminal defamation charge for linking a local official in the ruling United Russia party to a person of the same name with assets in the United States.
Fearing that this conviction would be used as an aggravating circumstance in the other case, Nekrasov fled the country.
