Russian national Andrei Belyaev has been charged with treason and taken into custody pending trial, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday, citing the spokeswoman of Moscow's Lefortovsky district court Yuliya Skotnikova.
According to Skotnikova, Belyaev was taken into custody on Oct. 22. He will remain in pre-trial detention until Dec. 21, she told Interfax. No details about Belyaev's occupation, reasons for the charge or the case against him have been revealed. Belyaev faces up to 20 years in prison.
It is the 20th treason case this year that the Russian media are aware of, the report said. One of the most high-profile cases was launched against Svetlana Davydova, a housewife in the Smolensk region, after she called the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow and reported that she believed Russian armed forces were being deployed to Ukraine. The charges against her were later dropped.
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