Mikhail Pletnev, one of the most acclaimed Russian pianists and conductors, was questioned by Thai police as part of a child sex investigation and released on bail without any charges being filed, the Russian Embassy in Bangkok said Tuesday.
Pletnev will likely be allowed to leave the country to go on a European tour with his Russian National Orchestra on Friday, Russian Consul Andrei Dvornikov said, RIA-Novosti reported.
“I just spoke to Pletnev on the phone. There was no arrest as such. He did not spend even a minute in the prison cell,” Dvornikov said.
Dvornikov said Pletnev, 53, was released on bail of an unspecified sum and was not asked to surrender his passport. Thai law requires suspects to post bail even if no charges have been filed, RIA-Novosti reported.
Svetlana Chaplygina, a spokeswoman for the Russian National Orchestra, which was founded by Pletnev in 1990, confirmed that Pletnev had not been charged.
“This is a very weird story. We don't know where it comes from,” she told Interfax, adding that “nothing has been canceled” and the tour is scheduled to proceed as planned.
Omsin Sukkanka, a Thai investigator working on the case, said Pletnev was accused of molesting one boy and appearing in compromising photographs with several others in the beachside town of Pattaya, The Associated Press reported.
Sukkanka told RIA-Novosti that locals suspected of running a child prostitution ring implicated Pletnev, but a search of Pletnev's house produced no evidence against him.
Pletnev, an Arkhangelsk native, won the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978 and a Grammy Award in 2005.
Pletnev, who is currently a resident of Switzerland, spends a month or two every year in Thailand, where he has a house, his childhood friend, cellist Sergei Korniyenko, told the Izvestia daily in 2007.
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