MOSCOW, March 1 (RIA Novosti) – A leading opposition blogger hounded by allegations of child abuse said he moved from Moscow to Prague, though he denied the move has anything to do with the accusations.
Rustem Adagamov, who tops Livejournal’s rating of most influential Russian bloggers with his blog Drugoi.livejournal.com, reported the move on his Twitter and Facebook on Thursday.
“I’m glad everything’s so close at hand. I want to travel around, tell more about Europe,” Adagamov wrote in a Facebook post he later deleted without explanation.
“My move to Prague has nothing to do with this crazy story. I want to do photojournalism in Europe, I’ve proposals for my blog,” he tweeted, referring to the accusations against him.
Adagamov’s ex-wife said in December that the 51-year-old blogger, who sits on the Coordination Counil of the Russian opposition, sexually abused an unidentified Norwegian girl for six years when the couple lived in Norway in the 2000's.
The Norwegian authorities have not reported any official investigation into the incident, while Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a preliminary check, which is ongoing. Adagamov refused to comment on the allegations, saying attacking his former wife would have been “unmanly.”
Russia has no extradition agreement with the Czech Republic, whose courts review Russian extradition requests on a case-to-case basis. In October, the Czech Constitutional Court reversed a ruling to extradite a Russian fraud suspect, saying he was not guaranteed a fair trial in Russia.
Adagamov’s blog, which has a readership of some 80,000, combines picturesque photographic reports about a wide variety of topics with liberal-minded invectives against the Kremlin’s policies.
Three other members of the Coordination Council, including opposition leaders Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov, currently face criminal cases on various charges. All have claimed their cases were fabricated by the Kremlin in retribution for their activism.
