"Maverick Writer Freed"

gazeta.ru, June 30, 2003

After serving more than half of his 4-year sentence, the controversial
writer and leader of the National-Bolshevik Party Eduard Limonov was
released on Monday morning. Limonov was taken into custody in April 2001 on
charges of illegally purchasing and possessing weapons, plotting terrorist
attacks and the forced overthrow of the constitutional order. In April this
year he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for the acquisition of weapons.
The other charges were dropped.
On June 19 a court in the Russian town of Engels, Saratov Region, granted
the writer an early release from prison for good behaviour. Limonov had
already served over half of his 4-year sentence, mostly in pre-trial
detention, and did not have any recorded violations in that time, the
Saratov regional judicial department told reporters.

The court also took into account positive references and petitions for his
release from State Duma members including Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Alexei
Mitrofanov and Vasily Shandybin. Limonov's Moscow publishers also supported
the parole plea.

Last week the prosecutor's office of Engels challenged the court ruling,
but then withdrew the appeal on the same day.

Upon leaving his prison cell on Monday morning, the writer headed to the
banks of the Volga River to bathe, the acting chairman of NBP Anatoly
Kishin told the press. According to Kishin, Limonov is to return to Moscow
on Tuesday. ''Eduard Limonov made no special statements,'' Kishin said.

The Saratov Regional Court sentenced Eduard Savenko, better known under his
writer's pseudonym Limonov, to 4 years in a common regime labour camp in
April of this year. The leader of the National-Bolshevik Party was found
guilty of illegally purchasing and storing weapons. All the other charges,
including plotting terror attacks and the forced overthrow of the
constitutional order, were later dropped. Limonov refuted all the charges
brought against him and claims the trial was politically motivated.

Five more members of Limonov's party who were tried at the same time were
sentenced to prison terms of between 2 years and 3 months to 3 years and 6
months. Limonov has been in custody since April 2001.

It took the judges two months to prepare a final verdict after the
prosecutors and the defence addressed the court with their final statements
in mid-February. Then, the state prosecutor Sergei Verbin asked the court
to sentence Limonov to 14 years in prison. Upon hearing the prosecutor's
request, the 60-year-old writer said he was ''ready to die in prison''.

The prosecutor claimed that Eduard Limonov and his right-hand man Sergei
Aksyonov had been plotting a series of terror attacks and planned an armed
invasion of northern Kazakhstan, where they tried to recruit volunteers to
carry out a plan entitled ''A Second Russia''.

Furthermore, the prosecution insisted that both Aksyonov and Limonov were
guilty of calls for the armed overthrow of the state regime. Both
defendants were accused of publishing three NBP-Info leaflets, in which the
party leaders allegedly called for the armed seizure of power, the forming
of an armed group and the setting up of guerrilla bases in Kazakhstan.

In his final address to the court, Limonov compared himself to Nikolai
Chernyshevsky (a 19th century revolutionary, writer and philosopher) and
called the proceedings against him politically motivated. ''We are no
criminals, but honest Russian patriots.'' he concluded.

Limonov was arrested on April 7, 2001 in the South Siberian Republic of
Altai and initially charged with the illegal acquisition of firearms. The
operation to detain the radical writer was conducted by the Federal
Security Service.

In an official statement released shortly afterwards the special services
gave information about the detention of several members of the National
Bolshevik Party a month earlier as they attempted to purchase firearms,
ammunition and explosives. Criminal proceedings were instigated against the
group and the investigators acquired evidence of Limonov's involvement in
the deal. According to one of the detained NBP members, Limonov had
personally ordered them to buy weapons.