The highest court in Russia's Dagestan republic was set to hear the appeal Wednesday of reporter Andrei Babitsky, who claims he was convicted for using a fake passport because he angered the Kremlin with his Chechen war coverage.
Babitsky, who covered the early months of the Chechen war for Radio Svoboda, the Russian branch of US-funded Radio Free Europe, was fined about 300 dollars in October by a lower court in Dagestan.
He subsequently refused to benefit from a general amnesty for small crimes and continues to protest his innocence of the fake document charges, which he says were filed on Kremlin orders.
Babitsky made his name by reporting on the impact of the Russian crackdown in breakaway Chechnya on ordinary civilians, his grim reports earning him harsh public criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The last journalist out of the Chechen capital Grozny before it was captured by Russian troops in February, he was first arrested on January 16 as he left the shattered capital after a stint behind rebel lines.
But after several weeks in detention, during which he says he was beaten by his Russian guards and heard the screams of fellow prisoners being tortured, Babitsky became embroiled in a bizarre prisoner swap.
Babitsky was only freed following the direct intervention of Putin, then acting president, who came under intense international pressure over the case.
The journalist has admitted using the fake passport, which bore the name of an Azerbaijani national, Abul Ogli Musayev, but said he had no choice as his own papers had been confiscated by his jailers -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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