A former Wagner Group commander who fled to Norway in January in hopes of claiming asylum has been arrested on suspicion of making an attempt to get again throughout the border into Russia, his lawyer says.
The reported arrest of ex-mercenary Andrey Medvedev comes after he was sentenced in April to 14 days in jail for disorderly conduct and for carrying an air gun in a public place, over his alleged position in a bar brawl within the Norwegian capital of Oslo in February.
However his Norwegian lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, informed Reuters Saturday that his consumer’s newest detainment hs been a misunderstanding.
“He was up there to see if he may discover the place the place he crossed [into Norway in January]. He was stopped when he was in a taxi. He was by no means close to the border. . . . It was by no means his intention to cross the border [into Russia],” Risnes mentioned.
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Former Wagner commander Andrey Medvedev is pictured in courtroom together with his lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, in Oslo, Norway, in April. (Gorm Kallestad/NTB/Reuters)
When Medvedev first entered Norway by means of the nation’s arctic border with Russia, he argued that he was in search of asylum as a result of he was afraid for his life after seeing the killing and remedy of Russian prisoners in Ukraine, in line with Reuters.
However then months later, Medvedev mentioned in a YouTube video that he wished to return to his homeland regardless of the dangers, the information company added.
Through the trial earlier this 12 months, the courtroom had acquitted Medvedev of committing violence against police officers throughout his arrest within the bar brawl.
He admitted resisting arrest and spitting when he was put in handcuffs however denied kicking the officers, Risnes had mentioned in the course of the proceedings, in line with the Related Press.
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A portrait of Wagner Group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in August in a airplane crash two months after launching his transient riot, lies on flowers on the grave on the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia. (AP Picture/Dmitri Lovetsky)
“It is rather good that he was acquitted for what was probably the most severe,” Risnes later informed the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet following the decision.
Medvedev mentioned he had agreed to affix the Wagner Group from July to November 2022 however had left after his contract was prolonged with out his consent. He mentioned he was prepared to testify about any attainable conflict crimes he witnessed, although he denied collaborating in any himself.
Norwegian police mentioned in an announcement later Friday that they’d taken a person in his 20s into custody for making an attempt to illegally cross the border into Russia, however didn’t determine him, Reuters reviews.
A view reveals a flag of the Wagner personal mercenary group on the website of the airplane crash that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin within the Tver area of Russia on September 1, 2023. (Reuters)
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Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a airplane crash in Russia final month.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
