Tatarstan's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to free a former spokesman for Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiyev who is serving 21 months in prison after being convicted of libel for speculating on his blog that Shaimiyev might be dead.
“[Irek] Murtazin’s sentence will remain in force, and his plea for pardon was not satisfied,” a Supreme Court judge said in announcing the ruling Friday, RIA-Novosti reported.
Murtazin, a well-known blogger and journalist, was jailed in November after a Kazan trial where Shaimiyev personally testified against him and called for the court to send his former press secretary to prison.
Murtazin said Friday that he had been sentenced illegally and that he did not trust the court.
Murtazin's case grabbed national attention when he speculated on his LiveJournal blog in September 2008 that a lack of information about Shaimiyev during an extended vacation in Turkey might be because of the fact that he had died.
Murtazin was charged with violation of privacy and spreading hatred and libel. Prosecutors said Murtazin “created a clear and present danger to the economic and political stability of society and rendered a negative influence to Shaimiyev's relatives and members of his inner circle” by publishing information about the president's death on his blog.
Murtazin, who worked as Shaimiyev's spokesman from 1999 to 2002, has also written a biography about Shaimiyev that accuses his former boss of corruption.
Shaimiyev has ruled the predominantly Muslim republic since 1991.
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