Mikhail Verbitsky, photo: social media
Russian mathematician Mikhail Verbitsky, who was detained in Yerevan, has been released from a detention facility. Lawyer Vache Simonyan told «Радио Азатутюн» this.
According to him, Verbitsky was released because Russian law enforcement agencies did not send Armenia’s Prosecutor’s Office a request for his detention.
What awaits Verbitsky. At the same time, he still cannot leave Armenia: his name remains in the Russian wanted database, and this is automatically reflected in Armenia’s border control system. For the mathematician to be able to depart, he must be removed from the wanted list.
Verbitsky said he hopes to continue working remotely at the National Institute of Mathematics in Rio de Janeiro. He also intends to cooperate with Armenian scientists.
What Verbitsky is accused of. Mikhail Verbitsky was detained on the evening of June 12 at Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport and was later placed in a detention facility. The reason was that in Russia the mathematician is accused of «justifying terrorism». The grounds for the prosecution were his statements in which he cast doubt on the methods used to investigate the terrorist attack at «Крокусе».
Who Verbitsky is. Mikhail Verbitsky is a former lecturer at the Moscow Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, the Higher School of Economics, the University of Glasgow, and the Free University of Brussels. In 2015, he left Russia for Brazil, where he began working at the National Institute of Mathematics in Rio de Janeiro. Verbitsky is also the creator of the online platform «Тифаретника».