An open letter in support of Alexander Kim, imprisoned in a pretrial detention center, has received more than a thousand signatures

Alexander Kim has been in custody since August 2023. He is charged under Part 3 of Art. 238 of the Penal Code (improper provision of services). He is also accused of prior conspiracy with the organizers of the excursion, which ended in the tragic deaths of eight people.

In late December, the business community defended Alexander Kim and published an open letter in support of him. The authors of the appeal insist on the businessman’s innocence and ask the court to carefully study the details of the case.

To date, top managers and founders of Russian companies have left their signatures on the appeal. More than a thousand people signed up, including the founder of the Anderson network Anastasia Tatulova, investor Nikolai Davydov, serial entrepreneur Anton Gladkoborodov, founder of the syndicate Igor Koloshin, co-founder of Cinemood Dasha Mingalieva. Among those who left signatures were also employees of Yandex, MTS, Wildberries, Tinkoff, Tochka and Alfa Bank.

A meeting will be held on Thursday at Moscow’s Basmanny Court to extend Kim’s preventive measure. The meeting will be open. The defense will insist on mitigating the preventive measure during the investigation.

On August 20, a group of eight people took a tour of the Moscow underground. They found this offer on the Sputnik8 service. As the group descended underground, a heavy downpour began outside. As a result, closed sewers flooded with water and people trapped in them drowned.

In this case, law enforcement officers also arrested the organizer of the march, Nikita Dubas. She faces the same charges as Alexander Kim.

Kim’s lawyers insist he is completely innocent. A businessman runs a service where thousands of ads are published. According to Sputnik8’s offer, the company is not a travel agency and does not conduct excursions itself. It is also stated in the offer (clause 6) that the responsibility for the quality and security of the routes lies with its compilers.

Thus, the Sputnik8 platform It is just an intermediary that aggregates data about guide excursions. Representatives of Alexander Kim indicate that the accusation in this case creates a precedent in which responsibility for the quality of services or goods is transferred to the aggregator.

The first to defend the businessman in August was his partner, WeGoTrip co-founder Alexander Golovaty. He also wrote an open letter of support to the entrepreneur.