New charges have been brought against environmental activist Suren Gazaryan after what he said was an attempt to steal a closer look an Italianate villa on Russia’s Black Sea coast allegedly being built for President Vladimir Putin.
Gazaryan was charged with threatening to kill a security guard at a “private property” near Gelendzhik on August 2, police in the southern Krasnodar region said.
The actvist denies the allegations against him, saying he was not trespassing the property, which he claims is being built illegally.
Gazaryan said he and several other activists were trying to inspect the house after arriving at the site by boat when they were confronted by security guards. They then left so as not to “provoke aggression,” although the law guarantees free access to a 20-meter coastal strip at any place along the shore, the activist said.
Gazaryan, of the the Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus, was sentenced to a three-year suspended sentence for defacing what he claimed was an illegal fence surrounding a house allegedly belonging to Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachyov.
President Putin’s spokesman has denied that the Russian leader was linked with the villa on the Cape of Idokopas, which Gazaryan says is worth $1 billion.
Photos of the 750,000 sq m villa, which features a casino, swimming pools, a gym and helipads, were leaked in December 2010.
In February last year, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper published what it claimed to be a copy of the original contract for the villa signed by Kremlin property manager Vladimir Kozhin in 2005.
Kozhin denied the allegations.