MOSCOW, Russia – A Russian court on Friday, April 10, ordered the detention of Oleg Roldugin, an investigative journalist for independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, following his arrest a day earlier.

Roldugin was arrested on Thursday, April 9, in a case involving alleged misuse of personal data, following a search of his home and a raid by masked security agents on the offices of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known investigative outlets.

Russia has tightened its censorship laws and increased pressure on independent media since it launched its war in Ukraine in 2022. In another case this week, the FSB security service said it had detained a freelance journalist in Siberia on suspicion of treason.

State media on Thursday published a brief video clip of Roldugin’s arrest, showing him being bundled into a van by masked men. Under Russian criminal law, misuse of personal data carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years if it causes “grave consequences.”

Roldugin, standing in a glass box in the courtroom on Friday, told reporters he was innocent.

His lawyer Marina Andreyeva requested that he be put under house arrest instead of in prison, and said she and Roldugin did not know whose personal data he was accused of misusing. The judge rejected her request, placing him in pre-trial detention until May 10.

Novaya Gazeta said its office had been searched for 13 hours on Thursday and no reason had been given.

Roldugin previously ran a weekly newspaper called Sobesednik that was labelled a “foreign agent” and forced to cease publication in 2024, months after it published a front-page story on the death in a penal colony of leading dissident Alexei Navalny.

Roldugin had recently published an article in Novaya Gazeta investigating how a former aide to the nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was able to acquire one of Russia’s most expensive penthouses.

He told reporters he doubted whether that was the reason for his arrest, but he did not know which of his articles had got him into trouble.

Novaya Gazeta’s editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov was co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, and dedicated the award to six of his paper’s journalists who were murdered for their work. – Rappler.com