Moscow court sentences The Insider editor Roman Dobrokhotov to 5.5 years in absentia

A court in Moscow has sentenced Roman Dobrokhotov, founder and editor-in-chief of the investigative outlet The Insider, in absentia to five and a half years in a general-regime penal colony, the Moscow prosecutor’s office said on Monday, according to Interfax.

The case

• Dobrokhotov was found guilty under Part 3 of Article 284.1 of Russia’s Criminal Code — organising the activities of a foreign organisation declared “undesirable” in Russia.
• The court also barred him from administering websites for five years.
• Prosecutors said he had twice previously been fined under the administrative article on participating in an undesirable organisation.

Background

Russian authorities have designated both The Insider and Dobrokhotov personally as “foreign agents”, and the outlet as an “undesirable organisation”, a status that makes any involvement with it a criminal offence. Dobrokhotov lives outside Russia; in 2022 a Russian court ordered his arrest in absentia on a charge of illegally crossing the border, and he is on the Interior Ministry’s wanted list, Interfax reported.

The Insider has published investigations into Russian security services and the war against Ukraine. The verdict is part of a series of in-absentia prosecutions of exiled Russian journalists: in October a Moscow court sentenced Mediazona editor-in-chief Sergei Smirnov to one year in absentia for failing to label his posts as those of a “foreign agent”, Kommersant reported.