Moscow's Basmanny Court has arrested in absentia writer Boris Akunin (Grigori Chkhartishvili), who is accused in Russia of calling for terrorism and spreading so-called "fakes" about the army.
"Regarding Chhartishvili, a preventive measure was chosen for a period of two months from the moment of his detention on the territory of Russia or extradition," the court's press service said on Tuesday.
Earlier, Russian authorities put the writer, who openly opposes the invasion of Ukraine, on the international wanted list. The criminal case against Akunin was opened in December last year. Rosfinmonitoring added him to the list of terrorists and extremists, and the Russian Ministry of Justice added him to the register of so-called foreign agents in January.
As part of the criminal case, investigators searched the Moscow publishing house Zakharov, which published the writer's books. The AST publishing house announced that it was stopping the distribution of his works. The Chitai-Gorod-Bukvoid chain of stores removed the books from sale. Akunin's name was removed from the posters of performances based on his plays. Some theaters also canceled performances.