Wednesday, December 20 2023 16:30

ArmInfo. The petition to detain Dmitry Setrakov and hand him over (extradition) to the competent authorities of the Russian Federation was not received, discussed and approved by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Armenia. Lusine Martirosyan, RA Prosecutor General's Advisor on Public and Media Relations reported on December 20.

"The RA Prosecutor General's Office does not have information regarding the investigation of the case against Dmitry Setrakov by the competent authorities of the Russian Federation, as well as his discovery on the territory of Armenia.

As previously reported, the statement of (Armenian, ed. note) human rights activist Artur Sakunts was sent to the body carrying out operational investigative activities in order to verify the information contained in it, after which the issue of initiating proceedings will be discussed," a representative of the supervisory authority noted.

On December 10, the V Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Vanadzor reported that the Russian military detained Russian citizen Dmitry Setrakov in Gyumri. Human rights activists claimed that a criminal case was opened against him for evading mobilization and leaving a military unit without permission (Part 5 of Article 337 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

HCA Vanadzor Chairman Artur Sakunts told RFE/RL's Armenian Service that the military base in Gyumri confirmed that Dmitry Setrakov was in custody; he was detained for 27 days. As Sakunts noted, at the base he was told that the Russian would serve his sentence in the Russian Federation if the court found him guilty. There were no official comments from the Russian side. According to him, RF citizen Dmitry Setrakov is a contract soldier; he moved to Armenia after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.

At the same time, the Go by the Forest project, which helps Russians avoid mobilization, reported on Telegram that Dmitry Setrakov was mobilized on September 24, 2022, voluntarily left his unit on April 22, 2023, and on October 11 surrendered to the military police on Russian territory. Project employees helped the Russian citizen escape from the military, leave the country, and on November 30, Dmitry Setrakov was in Yerevan. The project clarified that the Russian citizen was detained on December 7, and since then he has not been in contact. According to a statement from the TG channel on December 20, Russian citizen Dmitry Setrakov, who left mobilization for Armenia, was deported to Russia, he is in the regional Military Police Department for the Southern Military District, and now he is looking for a lawyer.