Russian Teacher Jailed Over Bribery to Walk Free Friday

A former painter from Moscow, whose efforts to bring culture to provincial villagers ended in a jail term for bribery, will walk free on Friday after a Russian court ordered his early release, prison officials said, APA reports quoting Russian media.

Ilya Farber, who has been in prison since 2011, will be released the morning of January 10, the state prison service in the Tver Region near Moscow told government newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta on Thursday.

A court in the Tver Region granted Farber’s parole request in December, canceling his seven-year sentence in a maximum-security prison days after President Vladimir Putin criticized his case in an interview with a state television channel.

Farber was also painted by leading Russian opposition figures as the victim of gross injustice for the conviction, which they called unexpectedly harsh.

Farber left Moscow for the village of Moshenki in central Russia in 2010 to teach arts, music and literature at a local school.

The media compared...