MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/. Moscow’s Basmanny Court has rejected the prosecutors’ motion on changing the measure of restriction from arrest to home arrest for historian Alexei Minyailo, releasing him without imposing any measure of restriction on him, TASS reported from the courtroom.

"Only aspects of administrative violation were registered in the defendant’s actions. The court rules to release Minyailo from custody," judge Artur Karpov announced the verdict. He was released in the courtroom.

Minyailo was arrested after the July 27 unauthorized rallies in central Moscow and is charged with participation in civil unrest.

In the court he pled not guilty and asked to be released. A representative for the Investigative Committee said that it is necessary to identify all the people involved in the crime, and Minyailo may exert influence over the witnesses, flee prosecution and destroy documents that are important for the criminal case investigation, so he considers home arrest the only possible measure of pre-trial restriction for the defendant. The prosecutor said, for her part, that there are no grounds for imposing any measure of pre-trial restriction on Minyailo, asking to release him.

Before the arrest, Minyailo, aged 34, was a volunteer in the headquarters of unregistered candidate to the Moscow State Duma Lyubov Sobol. He is one of the two defendants charged with participation in civil unrest (Part 2 Section 212 of the Russian Criminal Code). That said, the second perpetrator under the same crime (Sergei Fomin) had been placed under house arrest before.

More than 3,500 people took part in the July 27 unauthorized rally in Moscow. Police officers and employees of the Federal National Guard Troops Service detained more than 1,000 people. The Investigative Committee launched a criminal case under Part 1 Section 318 ("The use of violence against a public officer") and Part 2 Section 212 ("Participation in mass unrest") of the Russian Criminal Code and more than 10 people were arrested during the investigation.