FB mobilizes for Ukraine director held in Naples

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 5 - Facebook has mobilized for a Ukrainian theatre and opera director held in Naples after a 10-year sentence for embezzlement from a Moscow court.
    Eugene Lavrenchuk, former director of the Moscow Polish Theatre, the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater, and the Ukraine's first cinema and theatre school, has been in jail in the southern Italian port city since December 17, after the Moscow court verdict was issued in July 2020.
    More than 1,200 artists and intellectuals, Ukrainian and other, have written messages on the Facebook group "Free Eugene Lavrenchuk".
    They all called for the ex head of the Moscow Polish Theatre to be released from custody.
    One message noted that he had been accused of spreading gay propaganda, a crime in Russia.
    Moscow's Tagan Court sentenced him to 10 years in July 2020 for an alleged fraud committed eight years previously.
    Many of the Facebook messages urged Italian judicial authorities to work against Moscow's extradition request.
    Lavrenchuk said from his cell in Poggioreale Prison that ha was the victim of persecution by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
    He was arrested on a Russian warrant in Naples when his flight from Tel Aviv to Kiev stopped off in the southern Italian city and was delayed, forcing him to stay the night in a B&B. (ANSA).