The man from Yekaterinburg, who shouted at a child wearing a hat with a Z, will be tried again

The criminal case of a resident of Yekaterinburg, who shouted at a child wearing a hat with the letter Z, has been sent to the district court for a new trial. The decision to terminate the case, previously adopted by the Leninsky district court of the city, has been canceled. The new composition of the court will consider the case. The decision on this was taken by the court of cassation, “Kommersant” reports. The General Prosecutor’s Office sought to cancel the termination of the case.

On April 21, Alexander Neustroev, seeing an 11-year-old boy wearing a hat with the symbol Z, started shouting at him and insulting him. The incident was caught on video. Later it turned out that the child’s father is fighting in Ukraine. An administrative report was first drawn up against Neustroev, but after the story attracted the attention of pro-war bloggers, a criminal case of hooliganism was opened.

In June, the Leninsky District Court dismissed the case and imposed a court fine of 7,000 rubles on Neustroev. The announcement of the court’s decision to close the case caused outrage among the so-called patriotic Telegram channels. Many of them began to directly threaten lynching, claiming that those who returned from the war would take revenge on Neustroev in some way. State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein spoke in the same spirit. According to the deputy, he “has never been a supporter of extrajudicial methods of torture”, but his “hands itch”.

As a result, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia required the prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk Region to appeal the decision of the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg. The prosecutor’s office stated that the court should not have terminated the criminal case of hooliganism against Neustroev, since his actions were directed “not only against the schoolboy, but also caused damage to the social and moral education of the younger generation and the interests of the Russian Federation.”