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Russia accusing Ukrainian citizen Pavel Grib of assistance to terrorism — lawyer

The man is kept at a pretrial detention center in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, according to the lawyer

KRASNODAR, September 11. /TASS/. Russian law enforcement agencies accuse Ukrainian citizen Pavel Grib (Pavlo Hryb) and the man is kept at a pretrial detention center in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, Grib's lawyer Anatoly Sabinin told TASS on Monday.

"I had a meeting with him but I gave written recognizance not to reveal details," he said, adding that his customer was charged with offenses under Article 205.1 of the Rusisan Criminal Code specifying punishments for assistance to terrorism.

"If he is staying at the detention center for two weeks by now, then the charges have been issued to him," Sabinin said.

He indicated that Grib was kept at detention center No. 5 of the Krasnodar branch of Russia's Federal Service for the Penitentiaries.

Sabinin said he could not specify the dates of the arrest, since the authorities had failed to familiarize his customer with the materials of the case.

"I turned in a written petition for familiarization but they didn't hand out anything to him," he said.

According to the lawyer, Grib, 19, was feeling well enough.

Pavel Grib's father Igor, a former officer of the State Border Service of Ukraine, claims the Russian security services kidnapped his son when the latter was visiting Belarus. The Ukrainian embassy in Minsk issued a note to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry in order to clarify Pavel's whereabouts.

The Belarusian Interior Ministry said police officers did not detain him and he did not turn to the police for assistance.

Earlier reports said the Ukranian Foreign Ministry had protested to Russia over Grib's detention. A statement the Foreign Ministry issued on Friday said he was detained on August 25, 2017 and taken to a detention center in Krasnodar.

The ministry demanded that Ukrainian consular workers be given access to Grib and get exhaustive information on why he was kept at the detention center, as well as on the causes and circumstances of his detention. It also demanded information on the conditions where he was kept.

In addition to it, the ministry called for Grib's immediate return home.