Famed Russian conductor Mikhail Pletnev has been charged in Thailand with raping a boy aged under 15, a crime that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, Thai police said yesterday.
Pletnev, artistic director of the acclaimed Russian National Orchestra, was released on Tuesday after he posted 300,000 baht (US$9,300) bail following his arrest the same day in the Thai resort of Pattaya.
“He was initially charged with raping a boy under 15, which carries a jail term of four to 20 years,” Lieutenant Colonel Omsin Sukkanka told reporters.
PHOTO: AFP
He said police were considering whether to also file charges of illegal detention of a juvenile against Pletnev, a Grammy award winner.
“He has to report to the court every 12 days and if he wants to travel overseas he has to seek court permission because we already notified the immigration authority,” Omsin said.
Pletnev first shot to fame as a virtuoso pianist, winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978 at the age of 21.
But in the early 1980s he started conducting and in recent years gave up piano concerts in favor of his increasingly in-demand conducting activities.
His recordings with the Russian National Orchestra of the Russian classics, notably symphonies by Tchaikovsky and Rakhmaninov, have been hailed by critics as all-time greats.
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.
Supagon Noja, a worker with a non-governmental organization in Pattaya who has been actively involved in the case, said the victim was aged 14 and still in school. He said Pletnev denied the charge.
“The victim filed a complaint with us. We cooperated with police to investigate and obtained a court arrest warrant,” Supagon said.
Pletnev is a long-time resident of the resort town — famous for its raunchy nightlife — where he has a spa business, gives music classes and owns several houses, he said.
Andrei Dvornikov, a Russian consular official in Thailand, told news agency RIA Novosti that police had informed Pletnev that some Thai citizens who had been arrested for pedophilia and producing child porn had given evidence against him.
“The police conducted a search together with Pletnev of his house, where nothing suspicious was found,” he added.
The consul added that Pletnev, 53, and his Thai lawyer were to go to court yesterday to ask permission for the conductor to leave the country so he could take part in his orchestra’s forthcoming tours.
A court official in Pattaya said that Pletnev was next scheduled to appear on July 19.
Thailand has been described as one of the capitals of the world’s sex trade, known for flourishing prostitution and child sex trafficking.
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