A Moscow court on Monday handed a suspended sentence to actor Pavel Ustinov, state media reported, revising a previous sentence of several years in prison that had incited a national outcry.
Ustinov was detained outside a metro station in central Moscow during a political protest on August 3, part of a wave of anti-government demonstrations that have rocked the Russian capital in recent months.
The court maintained Ustinov's guilty conviction on charges that he attacked a policeman who was detaining him at the rally.
Video evidence has not corroborated the officer's testimony, and numerous celebrities have spoken out on behalf of the previously little-known 23-year-old actor.
‘Ustinov should be absolved,’ the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a reaction carried by Russian news agency Interfax.
Ustinov ‘did not commit any illegal action. He was unreasonably detained by police who used unjustified, excessive force,’ the deputy head of the group's Europe operations, Tanya Lokshina, was quoted as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on the court's decision, state media reported. The court's ruling reduced the previous sentence of three and a half years in prison to a one-year suspended sentence.
The previous court decision had been based on the testimony from police. The video was permitted as evidence in the appeal. Ustinov has described himself as apolitical and attested that he was not participating in the rally.
Celebrities, senior clergy members from the influential Russian Orthodox Church and even a leader of the dominant United Russia political party had called for the ruling to be overturned.
After the initial sentencing, Ustinov was released from custody pending the appeal. At a political protest in Moscow on Sunday, attended by an estimated 20,000 people, many demonstrators expressed solidarity with Ustinov.
The protests erupted in July after several opposition candidates were disallowed from participating in local elections in September. They have since taken on a broader anti-government sentiment and spread to major cities throughout the country.
The police and the judiciary have been widely criticized for harsh treatment of participants from the wave of opposition demonstrations. Of the thousands who have been detained, several have been given multiyear prison sentences.
