The court of Elbasan rejected the request of Russian citizen, Mikhail Zorin to change the security measure, after 9 months of imprisonment.

The defense requested the revocation of the measure, arguing that the deadlines for the expertise had ended.

“We presented a request for information from the prosecution body. From the evidence, we established that all investigative actions in connection to citizen Mikhail Zorin had been completed. As a result, we considered it necessary that the court decided to either revoke or replace the security measure. We consider the arrest in such a case to be very extreme, keeping in mind that my client has been in prison for 9 months. The court decided to dismiss the request,” clarified Isuf Shehu, attorney of the Russian citizen.

The three arrested persons, Mikhail Zorin, Svetlana Timofeeva and Ukrainian citizen Fedir Alpatov were detained after an incident that took place within the perimeter of the former weapons factory in Gramsh.

Zorin resisted the two soldiers who tried to stop him and used neutralizing spray against them. The three arrested are known as bloggers who are fond of visiting and photographing abandoned buildings.

However, the prosecution accuses them of espionage and claims that they had come to Albania to gather military and strategic information that harms national security. These suspicions have so far been accepted by the court.