Moscow Court Continues Detention of Ukrainian Library Director

The Presnya Court of Moscow extended the house arrest of the Director of the Ukrainian Library Natalia Sharina, whom the Russian authorities accuse of embezzlement and extremism, until October 28, Interfax-Ukraine informs.

It was reported earlier that the criminal case against Sharina had not been even submitted to the prosecutor’s office. "It was returned to investigators to fix some issues," Sharina’s defense council Yevgeniy Smirnov claimed. On August 11, another attorney Ivan Pavlov stressed that the defense requested the prosecution to clarify what Sharina was accused of.

"We did not receive any clarification of the accusation of extremism so far. The investigation cannot explain what the defendant is exactly accused of," Pavlov highlighted.

"We hope that the prosecutor’s office won’t dare to push this case to the court as it has numerous deficiencies," he added.

Sharina (58) was detained on October 28, 2015, when Russian law enforcement officers conducted a search in the Ukrainian Library in Moscow. A criminal case against her was initiated, she was accused of inciting ethnic hatred. This was allegedly due to circulation of a book by Dmytro Korchynskyi among the Library’s visitors, which was considered ‘extremist material’ and banned from use.

On April 5, she was also accused of embezzlement, as she had allegedly used money allocated for the Library lawyers to defend herself in the first criminal case when she was accused of extremism. This case was being investigated from 2011-2013 and was eventually closed.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda