Award-winning Russian film and theatre director Kirill
Serebrennikov was given a suspended three-year jail sentence on Friday after being
convicted of embezzlement, a much more lenient punishment than his supporters
had expected.
Many in the liberal cultural establishment saw the case as a
bid to silence someone whose work mocked the role of the church and state in
Russian society, and leading critic of the Kremlin Alexei Navalny dismissed it
as a fabrication.
The 50-year-old artistic director of Moscow’s avant-garde
Gogol Centre theatre was found guilty of leading a criminal group with the
colleagues that stole 129 million roubles ($1.87 million) in state funds.
Prosecutors had demanded six years’ jail, while the defendants denied any
wrongdoing.
The court ordered them to return the allegedly stolen funds,
and fined Serebrennikov 800,000 roubles ($11,500).
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