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Russian maestro leaves Thailand for Moscow
Award-winning Russian maestro Mikhail Pletnev, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy in Thailand, has left the country and is heading to Moscow, an airline official said Thursday.
Pletnev, artistic director of the acclaimed Russian National Orchestra, was granted permission by a Thai court Wednesday to travel overseas after posting extra bail, but is required to report back to court every 12 days.
The conductor flew out of Thailand on an Emirates flight for Dubai where he was to pick up a connecting flight to Moscow due to arrive there at 2:45 pm (1045 GMT), a spokeswoman for the carrier said.
An immigration official who asked not to be named confirmed that Pletnev had left the country. His next scheduled engagement is a performance with his orchestra in Ohrid, Macedonia, on July 12.
Pletnev was released Tuesday after he posted 300,000 baht ($9,300) bail following his arrest in the Thai resort of Pattaya on a charge of raping an underage boy, a crime which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
The conductor was arrested after police began investigating allegations by the victim that he had been raped by a Thai man and procured on behalf of many foreigners.
The probe uncovered photos of Thai boys with foreigners, including Pletnev, according to the police. The Thai man has been charged with trafficking, procurement and rape of underage boys.
Pletnev has denied the allegations against him.
"I have been slandered by my next door neighbour so that suspicion did not fall on him!" he was quoted as telling the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
"The search was carried out in one of my houses which I rented out to an acquaintance. He had been arrested on Sunday. The police came to my house as part of an investigation into that case."
The decision to allow the conductor to leave the country has dismayed local child protection activists, who fear the musician will never return to Thailand.
"I'm really disappointed. He should not have been granted bail," said Supagon Noja, a worker with the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights Foundation in Pattaya who has been involved in the case.
"I'm absolutely convinced that he will not return for trial. Although he owns several properties including houses (in Thailand) he can sell them through agents," Supagon said.
Pletnev, 53, founded the Russian National Orchestra in 1990 just before the break-up of the Soviet Union and his arrest has sent shockwaves through Russia's musical world.
He first shot to fame as a virtuoso pianist, winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978 at the age of 21.
In the early 1980s he started conducting and in recent years gave up piano concerts in favour of his increasingly in-demand conducting activities.
His recordings with the RNO of the Russian classics, notably symphonies by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, have been hailed by critics.
He is a member of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's advisory council on culture and art and in 2005 won a Grammy award for best chamber music performance.
The Russian government sent an "urgent order" to its embassy in Thailand to look into the situation and provide consular assistance to Pletnev, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.
Thailand is infamous for its flourishing prostitution and child sex trafficking.
It has made efforts to clean up its image and in 2008 expelled former glam rocker and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter to his native Britain after he had served nearly three years in a Vietnamese prison.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crimes/185701/russian-maestro-leaves-thailand-for-moscow
Award-winning Russian maestro Mikhail Pletnev, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy in Thailand, has left the country and is heading to Moscow, an airline official said Thursday.
Pletnev, artistic director of the acclaimed Russian National Orchestra, was granted permission by a Thai court Wednesday to travel overseas after posting extra bail, but is required to report back to court every 12 days.
The conductor flew out of Thailand on an Emirates flight for Dubai where he was to pick up a connecting flight to Moscow due to arrive there at 2:45 pm (1045 GMT), a spokeswoman for the carrier said.
An immigration official who asked not to be named confirmed that Pletnev had left the country. His next scheduled engagement is a performance with his orchestra in Ohrid, Macedonia, on July 12.
Pletnev was released Tuesday after he posted 300,000 baht ($9,300) bail following his arrest in the Thai resort of Pattaya on a charge of raping an underage boy, a crime which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
The conductor was arrested after police began investigating allegations by the victim that he had been raped by a Thai man and procured on behalf of many foreigners.
The probe uncovered photos of Thai boys with foreigners, including Pletnev, according to the police. The Thai man has been charged with trafficking, procurement and rape of underage boys.
Pletnev has denied the allegations against him.
"I have been slandered by my next door neighbour so that suspicion did not fall on him!" he was quoted as telling the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
"The search was carried out in one of my houses which I rented out to an acquaintance. He had been arrested on Sunday. The police came to my house as part of an investigation into that case."
The decision to allow the conductor to leave the country has dismayed local child protection activists, who fear the musician will never return to Thailand.
"I'm really disappointed. He should not have been granted bail," said Supagon Noja, a worker with the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights Foundation in Pattaya who has been involved in the case.
"I'm absolutely convinced that he will not return for trial. Although he owns several properties including houses (in Thailand) he can sell them through agents," Supagon said.
Pletnev, 53, founded the Russian National Orchestra in 1990 just before the break-up of the Soviet Union and his arrest has sent shockwaves through Russia's musical world.
He first shot to fame as a virtuoso pianist, winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978 at the age of 21.
In the early 1980s he started conducting and in recent years gave up piano concerts in favour of his increasingly in-demand conducting activities.
His recordings with the RNO of the Russian classics, notably symphonies by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, have been hailed by critics.
He is a member of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's advisory council on culture and art and in 2005 won a Grammy award for best chamber music performance.
The Russian government sent an "urgent order" to its embassy in Thailand to look into the situation and provide consular assistance to Pletnev, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.
Thailand is infamous for its flourishing prostitution and child sex trafficking.
It has made efforts to clean up its image and in 2008 expelled former glam rocker and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter to his native Britain after he had served nearly three years in a Vietnamese prison.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crimes/185701/russian-maestro-leaves-thailand-for-moscow
