MOSCOW, October 26 - RAPSI. Four new lawyers will join the defense team for oppositionist Leonid Razvozzhayev, an aide to lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev and one of several whose arrest was sought in the aftermath of a controversial anti-opposition documentary that accused key activists of plotting a coup, one of his new attorneys Dmitry Agranovsky told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) on Friday.
"I, Anna Stavitskaya, Alexander Denisov and Ruslan Chanidze will be representing Leonid Razvozzhayev. His relatives have signed a contract with us, and we have already been granted access to the case," Agranovsky said.
On Thursday, attorney Mark Feygin told RAPSI that he had been issued permission to visit Razvozzhayev, who is being held under arrest at the investigative isolation ward. The Investigative Committee confirmed Feygin was authorized to defend the oppositionist.
On October 19, the Russian Investigative Committee placed Razvozzhayev on the federal wanted list. He was charged with organizing mass riots together with Left Front movement coordinator Sergei Udaltsov and his aide Konstantin Lebedev. The case against them was initiated after the film, "Anatomy of Protest 2," was shown on the NTV TV channel.
In Kiev, Razvozzhayev went to submit an application for political asylum to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He disappeared mysteriously after leaving the UNHCR office, and ended up in Russian police custody shortly thereafter.
The Investigative Committee later reported that Razvozzhayev came to them of his own accord and said that he wanted to file an acknowledgment of guilt. Razvozzhayev described the circumstances surrounding the riots, as well as Sergei Udaltsov's, Konstantin Lebedev's, and other individuals' involvement in organizing the protests on May 6 on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow.