Life in Russia continues to resemble a Dostoyevsky novel. An ultranationalist leader has been arrested in Moscow for, well, I will let The Moscow News explain:
“The Moscow City Court on Monday approved the arrest of retired colonel and ultranationalist icon Vladimir Kvachkov, 62, held on suspicion of preparing an armed coup with crossbows.
Kvachkov’s lawyer Andrei Pershin said by telephone that he believed the arrest of his client was revenge from Rusnano chief Anatoly Chubais, whom Kvachkov was twice acquitted of trying to kill.
“Considering the fact that he was already in pretrial detention, we expected this to happen,” Pershin said about Monday’s ruling to keep Kvachkov in pretrial detention for two months.
He said he planned to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Chubais was not available for comment Monday, but he said after Kvachkov’s second acquittal in September that he believed the defendant was behind the 2005 attack on him. Chubais also said he supported Kvachkov’s release from prison because keeping him behind bars would make him a martyr for nationalists.
Kvachkov and three other suspects were charged with attacking Chubais’ car with gunfire and an explosion, allegedly in retaliation for his work as Russia’s privatization architect in the 1990s, which nationalists say undermined the country’s might. But they were acquitted by juries in two separate trials in 2008 and 2010, with the Supreme Court upholding the verdict in December.”