Claimed by Kiev for "
high treason
", the pro-Russian Ukrainian blogger Anatoli Chariï, famous in his country, was arrested on Wednesday in northeastern Spain, AFP learned Thursday, May 5 from the Spanish police.
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He was arrested yesterday (in the province of) Tarragona by national police officers on the basis of an international arrest warrant
," police sources told AFP.
Heard Thursday in Madrid by an investigating judge of the National Audience, a high court responsible in particular for extradition procedures, Anatoli Chariï was released "
provisionally
" but with judicial control measures, said this court.
"Offences of high treason and incitement to hatred"
The blogger is banned from leaving Spanish territory, his passport has been withdrawn and he will have to show up twice a month in court, he said.
The Ukrainian authorities, who qualify Anatoly Shariï as a "
propagandist
", demand his extradition for "
offences of high treason and incitement to hatred
", according to the National Audience.
Anatoli Chariï has nearly three million subscribers on his YouTube account, and also has an information site, called sharij.net.
The blogger started his career as an investigative journalist in Ukraine, which earned him threats.
In July 2011, unknown persons opened fire on the car in which he was traveling in kyiv.
He then left Ukraine in 2012 for fear of legal proceedings, which he denounces as trumped up.
The political asylum he had obtained in 2012 in Lithuania was revoked in 2021. Displaying increasingly pro-Russian opinions from 2014, Anatoli Chariï is critical of the Maidan movement, which allowed the arrival in power of a pro-Western government in kyiv, and to the war against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region that began that same year.
Read alsoBlogger detained for “treason” in western Ukraine
In 2019, Anatoli Chariï created a political party bearing his name, the "
Party of Chariï
", which won 2.2% of the vote in the legislative elections.
Without deputies in Parliament, his party nevertheless won positions in several local authorities the following year.
His party was banned by Ukraine's Security Council in March, along with other parties considered pro-Russian, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
