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Valery Rashkin (picture from September 2021)
Photo:
Alexey Maishev / SNA / IMAGO
Communist MP Valery Rashkin has been sentenced to a three-year suspended sentence for shooting a moose.
A court in the Saratov region on Friday found it proven that the politician went on an illegal hunt in October.
The 67-year-old Raschkin is seen as a protestant and, unlike many other members of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, does not always line up with the Kremlin.
His lawyer Konstantin Lazarev spoke of an excessive judgment and announced that he would appeal against it.
The State Duma had lifted the parliamentarian's immunity for the trial.
Kremlin critics suspect that the actions of the judiciary are primarily a revenge for the fact that Raschkin helped organize several protests in Moscow after the parliamentary elections in September.
The communists, who are actually considered to be quite loyal to the Kremlin, complained about voter fraud in favor of the governing party United Russia.
Rashkin had spoken of a "provocation" directed against him
The hunting incident has been causing a stir in the Russian media for months, there is talk of a "moose murder" and a "scandal".
Rashkin had been picked up by police officers in the Saratov region on the Volga with a moose carcass in the trunk.
At first he denied having shot the animal himself.
He later admitted the incident and was remorseful.
In order to compensate for the "biological damage," he wants to buy a moose and have it released into the wild.
In addition, the politician had explained in a video that his misconduct was now being used for a “provocation” directed against him.
Raschkin is a prominent communist, and in his office is a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police.
When Raschkin was elected to the Duma in 1999, shortly before the beginning of the Putin era, the Communists were still a force to be feared. They were the strongest faction and the Duma speaker.
ngo/dpa