MOSCOW. April 8 (Interfax) - A bill that allows convicting persons staying abroad on 20 criminal counts in absentia passed the second and third readings at the State Duma on Tuesday.
The bill amends Article 247 of the Russian Criminal Law of Procedure and allows courts to hear such cases in the defendants' absence.
"These are such crimes as calls for terrorism, extremism, breach of the territorial integrity of our country, mass unrest and unleashing of an aggressive war, dissemination of fake information and discreditation of the Russian Armed Forces, destruction or damage of military graves and monuments, and rehabilitation of Nazism," Irina Yarovaya, head of the working group that drafted the bill, told journalists earlier.
Many of such crimes are committed abroad, and perpetrators believe they will never be brought to justice, she said.
The bill is co-authored by State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Yarovaya, the heads of factions of United Russia, the Communist Party, A Just Russia - For Truth and the Liberal Democratic Party, and members of those factions. In all, the bill has 400 co-authors.