Russian activists detained for torture protest

By MAX SEDDON
Published on 28/10/2012 00:00

SEVERAL Russian opposition leaders were detained yesterday while protesting against what they say was the torture of a fellow activist.

Investigators last week said opposition activist Leonid ­Razvozzhayev had turned himself in and confessed to plotting riots. But days later, he disavowed his confession and filed a complaint over what he said was his abduction from Ukraine. Rights activists who visited him in jail say he had been tortured into confessing.

Hundreds of people gathered in central Moscow yesterday to protest an increasingly relentless crackdown on the opposition in Russia as well as Razvozzhayev’s treatment. Some, including opposition leaders Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Yashin, held one-man pickets outside the former KGB headquarters, protesting “torture and repression”.

Police detained three men as well as several other activists. No charges had yet been brought against them.

Elsewhere in Moscow, Brooklyn Nets owner and former Russian presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov said he was leaving business to focus full-time on politics.

He said he wants to lead “a third power” in the country, competing both with the Kremlin and the opposition.

The 47-year-old Prokhorov, believed to be worth about $13 billion (£8bn), finished third in Russia’s presidential election in March amid speculation that his candidacy was orchestrated by the Kremlin.