Latvian journalist Yury Alekseev has fled to Belarus where he says he will seek political asylum, the media outlet Delfi reported on Monday.
The escape comes days before Alekseev was due to appear in court in his home country.
The journalist and his defenders claim he is being persecuted for his pro-Russian views.
Alekseev said in a post on Facebook that he left Latvia this past Saturday, traveling from Riga to Vilnius, Lithuania, where he took a bus to Minsk. “I crossed the border. I was nervous throughout my entire body,” the journalist wrote.
In Latvia, the 66-year-old had been charged with inciting national, ethnic or racial hatred, illegal possession of ammunition and distribution of materials containing child pornography, according to the news portal. The trial in one of the cases was scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
During his career, Alekseev has served as editor-in-chief of Business & Baltic, Kommersant Baltic, and other publications in Latvia.
In 2017, the State Security Service of Latvia detained him over criminal charges in connection with a publication of comments allegedly inciting ethnic hatred. The intelligence services conducted several searches of his home. During one investigators allegedly found ammunition for a pistol and materials containing child pornography.
The Riga district court found Alekseev guilty and sentenced him to two years in prison, but the journalist appealed the sentence and it did not come into force. The court later sentenced him to a year of probation.
Alekseev has denied all the accusations against him and says the charges were fabricated.