Moscow Court Issues Absentee Arrest Warrant for Garry Kasparov

The Zamoskvoretsky Court in Moscow has issued an absentee arrest warrant for chess player Garry Kasparov on charges of publicly calling for terrorist activities. "The petition for pre-trial detention has been granted," the court's documents state.

According to earlier reports by RIA Novosti based on court documents, the case against Kasparov has been initiated under Article 205.2, part two of the Russian Criminal Code, which deals with public calls for terrorist activities, justification of terrorism, or propaganda of terrorism through media or the internet. The penalties stipulated by this article include imprisonment for a term of 5 to 7 years.

In May 2022, the Russian Ministry of Justice included Kasparov in the list of individuals deemed foreign agents. Rosfinmonitoring has also included him on its list of extremists and terrorists.

Garry Kasparov is a 13-time world chess champion, a distinguished master of sports in the USSR, and an eight-time winner of the Chess Olympiad. He announced his retirement from chess in 2005. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition. The following year, Kasparov announced his departure from Russia.

In 2016, together with journalist Ivan Tyutrin, he founded the "Free Russia Forum" in Lithuania, which was declared an undesirable organization by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office in 2023. Other organizations co-founded by Kasparov, such as the "Committee of Russian Action" and the "Anti-War Committee of Russia," have also been labeled as undesirable organizations.