MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) – A Moscow district court issued an international warrant for a 22-year-old student wanted in connection with violence at an opposition rally last year, the court’s press service said Monday.
The suspect, Anastasia Rybachenko, said on her Facebook page that she considered the case political persecution.
Rybachenko, a leftist activist in her spare time, is accused of participating in mass riots and attacking police officers during clashes on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square in May 2012.
The charges carry a combined maximum punishment of 10 years in prison.
About 650 people were briefly detained on the square, and 27 have faced prosecution over the riots, which police said were instigated by leftist rally organizers. The opposition has blamed police for provoking the clashes.
Rybachenko left the country in summer 2012 and is currently studying at a college in Estonia.
Estonia will consider extradition her after it receives a formal request from Russia, a spokeswoman for Estonian prosecutors was cited by Russian media as saying.
Rybachenko was not on Interpol’s publicly available wanted list as of late Monday. The organization’s rules prohibit it from looking for suspects in politically motivated cases.
