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Court to hand down verdict for suspect in high-profile battery case on November 30

Environmental journalist Konstantin Fetisov was beaten up after participation in a picket against a dump site in Khimki's Levoberezhny district

MOSCOW, November 27 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow region court on November 30 will announce the verdict in the case over attack on environmentalist Konstantin Fetisov.

"The verdict will be announced at 11:00, Moscow time, on November 30," the Court's press service told Itar-Tass.

Andrei Kashirin, a 30-year-old Muscovite, is accused of attempted murder, inciting to murder and abetting battery. The trial was held under special procedure as the defendant had pleaded guilty and signed a plea bargain deal.

During the arguments of the parties, the prosecutor for the state demanded that Kashirin be sentenced to seven years in prison.

On November 4, 2010, environmental journalist Konstantin Fetisov was beaten up after participation in a picket against a dump site in Khimki's Levoberezhny district. He was beaten with a baseball bat as he was returning from a police station where he had been brought after the picket.

Fetisov was rushed to an IT ward and remained in artificially induced coma for some time.

According to the investigators, Kashirin offered Vazgen Tsaturyan and Denis Rastokin to beat Fetisov for 30,000 roubles /about 1,000 U.S. dollars/. Head of Khimki administration department Andrei Chernyshev had promised Kashirin patronage in getting a municipal job and running a business.

Kashirin took part in tailing Fetisov and struck a trusting acquaintance with him. On September 18, 2010, he phoned the environmentalist and suggested a meeting under a pretext had had invented. At the meeting, Tsaturyan and Rastokin beat up the journalist.

In November 2010, Kashirin, acting on Chernyshov's instruction, found Maxim Kriventsov, and offered him to murder Fetisov for 1,000 dollars. Kashirin watched the environmentalist’s house, drove the perpetrator there passed a baseball bat to him, telling him to hit the victim on the head. During the beating, Kashirin fled to Belarus to hide at the place of one of his accomplices.

"Both crimes were motivated by resentment at Fetisov's public activity, aimed at exposing violations by local self-rule officials and attracting the attention of law-enforcement and supervisory bodies to them," an Investigative Committee official said.