Journalist Pavel Padabed sentenced to 4 years in prison

Pad­abed was charged with par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion for his coop­er­a­tion with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel, which is rec­og­nized as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion. Video clips with “protest con­tent” were pre­sent­ed as evi­dence, includ­ing those ded­i­cat­ed to the dis­ap­peared cam­era­man Dmit­ry Zavad­sky and mur­dered jour­nal­ist Pavel Sheremet. Pad­abed’s name was not in the cred­its, but the sus­pi­cion of his involve­ment was based on “cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence”.
It was also revealed dur­ing the tri­al that Pad­abed’s phone was tapped and that the secu­ri­ty forces had access to his texts on mes­sen­gers.
The jour­nal­ist was also accused of “lucra­tive impuls­es”. The fact that he had a for­eign bank card alleged­ly indi­cat­ed that he was seek­ing finan­cial gain from his jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties.
Pavel was arrest­ed on Jan­u­ary 20 this year and remained in cus­tody pend­ing tri­al.

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