MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Woman who left hate note on Putin's parents' grave arrested

“Everything is very scary, everything is very sad,” the woman told the court

Russian authorities have arrested a woman who left a letter on the grave of Vladimir Putin's parents saying they had “raised a murderer.” She risks several years in prison.

Irina Tsybaneva, 60, was placed under house arrest by a St. Petersburg court for writing that the Russian President was “a freak and a murderer.” The woman is charged with desecrating a grave for political or hostile motives. The maximum penalty, if convicted, is five years in prison.

On Oct. 6. Tsybaneva left a note on the grave of Maria and Vladimir Putin at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, the contents of which did not please the authorities.

According to the independent Russian site Meduza, the letter also reads: “Parents of a serial killer, take him away, we have so much pain and misery due to him. The whole world prays for his death. Death to Putin, you raised a freak and a murderer.”

Police arrived at Tsybaneva's apartment four days later after identifying her through footage from the cemetery's multiple surveillance cameras. A cemetery guard found the note and sent it to the authorities.

This is not the first time someone has left an offensive letter on the grave of Vladimir Putin's parents. Security at the cemetery where Putin's parents are buried was tightened in late September after activist Anastasia Filippova staged a protest gesture by leaving a sign resembling an elementary school notebook. “Dear parents, your child is behaving disgracefully! He skips history classes, fights with his classmates - he threatens to blow up the whole school! Do something!”

Tsybanev testified before a St. Petersburg court. “I was watching a TV broadcast, very serious, and there was some news that made me ill. I realized that everything is very scary, everything is very sad. Many people were killed,” she said. The prosecutor justified the arrest by saying that Tsybaneva “committed a crime whose danger to the public lies in insulting the memory of the dead and the feelings of the living towards the dead.”

The court sentenced Tsybaneva to house arrest until November 8 and banned her from using the Internet, telephone, or mail.