France has arrested four people in a probe into a suspected plot against an unnamed Russian dissident, anti-terror prosecutors said Thursday.
Le Parisien newspaper reported earlier that Vladimir Osechkin, who leads the Gulagu.net project that specializes in uncovering abuses in Russian prisons, was the target of a "liquidation plot."
Contacted by AFP, prosecutors did not wish to identify the Russian dissident thought to have been targeted.
"The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (PNAT) has opened an investigation on the charge of taking part in a terrorist association with a view to preparing one or more crimes against persons," it said in a statement.
Four men aged 26 to 38 had been arrested on Monday.
Le Parisien said they were French nationals or from the republic of Dagestan in Russia's North Caucasus region.
The PNAT opened an initial probe into the alleged plot on Sept. 19 and asked French domestic intelligence to look into it, it added.
Osechkin has been based in France's southwestern resort town of Biarritz.
French prosecutors in September 2022 opened a probe into alleged death threats against Osechkin, but found "no objective element" to back his claim someone was trying to kill him.
Osechkin told AFP at the time he had been at home with his wife and children and working in the dark when he noticed "a moving red dot on the railing of one of the terraces and then moving towards me on the wall."
He said he had been informed in February that year of an assassination plot against him and was subsequently put under police protection.
Gulagu.net rose to prominence in 2021 after publishing videos showing rapes in Russian prisons, as well as testimonies from victims and, extremely unusually, from the perpetrators, leading to the opening of an investigation by the authorities.
It claims to have more than 1,000 videos showing torture in Russian jails.
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