The former police officer accused of spreading military “fake news” over phone conversations has had the charges against him toughened.

The prosecution has toughened the charges against former Moscow police officer Semiel Vedel (Sergei Klokov), who is accused of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army (para. “d” Part 2 Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code). This was reported from the courtroom by “Mediazona” correspondent.

In May, the Perovsky District Court in Moscow began a retrial of Vedel’s case after the sentence under the “fake news” article was overturned in cassation and the case was sent back for fresh consideration.

According to “Mediazona,” the already existing case episode featuring a conversation with Alexander Dyachkov, head of mobilisation training for Moscow, has now been interpreted by the prosecution as preparation to spread “fake news” (Art. 30 of the Criminal Code). The state prosecution now considers Vedel to be the “organiser” of the crime (Part 3 Art. 33 of the Criminal Code), while his conversation partners are deemed “unknowing accomplices.”

The prosecution claims that in his conversation with Dyachkov, the police officer tried to persuade him to initiate an internal “press conference” between police officers in Russia and Ukraine, so that subsequently officers from the Main Internal Affairs Directorate could speak out “against the special military operation.”

The prosecution believes that Vedel also told his conversation partners that he was quoting confirmed information and encouraged them to share this information “with the maximum number of people” for “maximum publicity.” He also referred to an acquaintance of his father’s, Dmitry Cheban, deputy head of the criminal investigation department of the National Police for Kyiv.

However, the state prosecution said that although Vedel’s conversation partners saw him “as a representative of the authorities,” they did not go on to spread the information or organise a “press conference.”

The conversation with Yuriy Kurishko, an acquaintance from Sevastopol—a port city in Crimea currently under Russian control—was classified by the security services as a separate episode of spreading “fake news.” Kurishko’s wife allegedly overheard their conversation.

At the trial, Semiel Vedel stated that he considered the charges absurd and “categorically denied” his guilt. His lawyer, Daniil Berman, supported him. He pointed out that under the “fake news” article, “false information must be spread publicly,” not in phone calls.

The defence lawyer also noted that in the conversation with Kurishko there were “no signs whatsoever” that Vedel was trying to broadcast his views to his acquaintance’s wife. According to Berman, this episode was added to the case because otherwise the court “would have been forced to release” Vedel from the pre-trial detention centre.

• The case against the former police officer was initiated in March 2022 due to phone conversations with friends and colleagues. According to case materials, Vedel said that Russia was evacuating its wounded soldiers to Belarus and was understating the number of fatalities, as well as that Russian soldiers had killed civilians and that Ukraine was “not ruled by Nazis.”
• In April 2023, the court sentenced Vedel to seven years in a penal colony under the article for publicly spreading knowingly false information about Russian soldiers out of motives of hatred. He was also stripped of his rank as captain of the internal service and banned from holding positions in law enforcement agencies for four years.
• In August 2023, the Moscow City Court upheld the sentence against the former police officer. However, at the cassation stage, the case was returned for a new hearing.