Suspects in the attack on lawyer Elena Ponomareva have been detained

The police detained two people suspected of yesterday’s attack on lawyer Elena Ponomareva. This is reported by TASS with reference to the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The press service of the department said that the detention was carried out jointly with the St. Petersburg department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on transport. “Criminal investigation officers detained the suspects born in 1984 and 1998 in St. Petersburg,” said the interlocutor of the agency.

On Thursday, Moscow lawyer Elena Ponomareva received a second-degree eye burn after unknown people poured green on her at a public transport stop. The police opened a criminal case about hooliganism.

The lawyer believes that the attack is connected with her professional activity. “From my point of view, what happened is related to the investigation of the drug-trafficking case, for which I was interrogated in the Lytkarinsk court in 2021 as a witness. The accused were convicted and sentenced to a serious term, and everything that happened to me could have been revenge for what happened that I did not confirm their version in the court session,” she said.

In addition, Ponomareva said that earlier they threatened her in messengers, sending photos of relatives, as well as Ponomareva’s property and dog. They punctured the tires and doused the car with permanent paint. Ponomareva then turned to the law enforcement authorities, but, as emphasized in the Bar Association of the Moscow region, “this did not give results, the guilty parties were not identified.”