Mikhail Verbitsky. Photo: the mathematician’s social media
Russian mathematician and blogger Mikhail Verbitsky, who was detained in Armenia on June 12 at the request of the Russian authorities, was able to leave the country and flew to Israel. His lawyer, Vache Simonyan, told Meduza this.
Details. According to the lawyer, Verbitsky is now in Tel Aviv. It was previously reported that after his release from custody, the Armenian authorities did not allow him to cross the border because he remained listed in the Russian wanted database. Simonyan did not specify exactly how he managed to leave the country.
What happened. Verbitsky was detained on June 12 at Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport. In Russia, he is accused of justifying terrorism and “discrediting” the army because of statements about the terrorist attack at “Crocus City Hall.”
On June 15, an Armenian court released Verbitsky. As Simonyan explained, the Russian side failed to send the documents required to consider the extradition request within the established deadline.
Who Verbitsky is. Mikhail Verbitsky is a former lecturer at Moscow’s Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, the Higher School of Economics, the University of Glasgow, and the Free University of Brussels. He left Russia for Brazil in 2015, where he began working at the National Institute of Mathematics in Rio de Janeiro. Verbitsky is also the creator of the online platform “Tifaretnik.”