Charges dropped against woman who received medication for son from abroad - prosecutors
MOSCOW. Aug 19 (Interfax) - Transport prosecutors concluded that the criminal case against a woman, who received foreign medications for her epileptic son by mail, was unlawful, a spokesman for the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said.
"Following an inspection the Moscow-Kursky transport prosecutor overturned the resolution to open the criminal case as being unlawful and unsubstantiated, because the preliminary investigation found no data showing the objective side of a crime as per Article 229.1 of the Criminal Code (trafficking of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors or analogues; plants containing narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their precursors or parts thereof, containing narcotic drugs)," Alexander Kurennoi told Interfax on Monday.
The dossier was now sent for additional procedural checks by Moscow Customs, its process and results are being controlled by the Moscow inter-regional transport prosecutor's office, he said.
A woman, who had received a foreign medication for his epileptic child, was being treated as a witness in a criminal case over cross-border smuggling of psychotropic substances, the Federal Customs Service said earlier.
The case was opened on the charge of "trafficking of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their precursors or analogues across the customs border of the Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Union," the agency said.
The Moscow woman was apprehended at a Russian Post office in Moscow while receiving a delivery of the Frisium anticonvulsant, which is not registered in Russia, the agency said.
"In all, the resident of the capital city has received three international mail deliveries of the Frisium, 600 pills in total. The drug is on the Russian list of psychotropic substances whose circulation is restricted under the government directive N681 of June 30, 1998," the customs authority said.
The woman explained that she had ordered the drug by Internet for her 25-year-old epileptic son, but did not show a relevant medical prescription or conclusion to prove the medication was necessary, the press service said.
The mother of an ailing child had been detained by customs officers at a Moscow post office while receiving a delivery of Frisium from abroad, the director of the human rights foundation "Dom S Mayakom" (The Lighthouse), Lida Moniava, told Interfax.
The case prompted a public outcry; there have been similar cases recently.