Authorities in Belarus said Thursday they have detained a fugitive single father who escaped house arrest in neighboring Russia shortly before he was convicted of discrediting the army and sentenced to prison following his daughter’s antiwar sketch at school.
Alexei Moskalyov was taken into custody in the Minsk region of Belarus, according to Natalya Sakharchuk, a spokeswoman for the country’s Interior Ministry. Her comments were reported by Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti and the Sputnik Belarus news site, saying he was being held “upon request of the Russian police.
Moskalyov, 54, drew international attention this week in a case that underscored the scale of the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent when he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. He wasn’t in the courtroom in his hometown of Yefremov for the verdict Tuesday because he had fled his apartment, where he was under house arrest, just the day before.