The former head of Moscow’s Gogol Center theater has been hospitalized after suffering a heart attack during court hearings into fraud.
Alexei Malobrodsky, 60, who led the renowned theater between 2013 and 2015, was arrested in June 2017 in a $3.4-million embezzlement case that supporters dismiss as politically motivated. The court refused a second request by investigators to put Malobrodsky under house arrest over health concerns on Thursday. He is the last suspect in the case to remain on pre-trial detention.
“Malobrodsky is in intensive care, he was lying handcuffed to the hospital bed,” the state-run TASS news agency cited an unnamed member of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (PMC) as saying late Thursday.
The director was released from handcuffs by Friday morning, TASS cited the head of the Presidential Human Rights Council Mikhail Fedotov as saying.
Doctors assess the director’s condition as serious but stable, TASS cited hospital officials as saying Friday.
