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Moscow court upholds house arrest of stage director Serebrennikov

Kirill Serebrennikov is accused of embezzling $1.1 mln

© Vyacheslav Prokofiev/TASS

MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court has upheld the house arrest of Russian stage director Kirill Serebrennikov, accused of embezzling 68 mln rubles ($1.1 mln).

The court allowed Serebrennikov, who lives in downtown Moscow, to have two-hour long walks in the evening.

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"The lawyer’s complaint is partly satisfied," the court ruled, rejecting other demands of allowing the visits of a cleaner and a priest, and going to the theater.

On Monday, another 39 culture and art figures backed Serebrennikov. The stage director thanked all those people who supported him. "They back me in court as they know that those charges they bring against me and the reality are incompatible. This is a fabricated case," he said.

Serebrennikov was detained in St. Petersburg on August 22 on suspicion of embezzling 68 mln rubles earmarked in 2011-2014 to implement the Platform project. The theater director was charged with embezzlement while Moscow’s Basmanny Court placed him under house arrest until October 19 on the request of the Investigative Committee.

Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said earlier that the stage director’s guilt was confirmed by eye-witnesses’ testimony, the results of investigative activities and financial documents seized during searches.

As part of the criminal probe, investigators earlier detained former director of the Gogol-Center Theater Alexei Malobrodsky, and also former Director General and Chief Accountant of the Seventh Studio Yuri Itin and Nina Maslyayeva.

The Moscow City Court earlier read out the testimony by Maslyayeva who pointed to Serebrennikov as the organizer of the criminal scheme. Producer Yekaterina Voronova has been put on a federal wanted list.

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