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Lev Lerman, an electrical engineer from Nizhny Novgorod who spoke out against the war, has been released from a penal colony and has left Russia, reports the “Nizhny Novgorod Political Red Cross.”
On 30 May, 68-year-old Lerman was released from Correctional Colony No. 14 in Nizhny Novgorod Region. After his release, he travelled to Israel, where his wife was waiting for him.
In October 2022, the court sentenced Lerman to four years in a penal settlement on charges of illegal acquisition of ammunition (Part 1, Article 222 of the Russian Criminal Code) after ten cartridges were found at his home. His loved ones were certain that the real reason for his prosecution was his anti-war statements on social media.
Security forces came to Lerman’s home in Nizhny Novgorod, a major city on the Volga, a few days after the start of the war, on 3 March 2022. They conducted a search that lasted about ten hours, and the next morning, took him to the police station.
Lerman’s wife said that officers from Centre “E” were present during the search and were interested in his posts: “They said to me: ‘Why did you get involved in politics at your age? .’”
After this, Lerman was arrested for nine days under a protocol for violating the rules for holding an assembly (Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code). While he was in the detention centre, security forces conducted another search of his home—this time they found the cartridges. Lerman insisted that the cartridges had been planted on him and that he saw them for the first time in court during the examination of evidence.