Reporter Convicted in False-Papers Case

A court in southern Russia convicted reporter Andrei Babitsky of using false documents and sentenced him to pay a fine, but it immediately gave him amnesty under a previous parliamentary order. The court in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Dagestan region, ordered Babitsky to pay about $470 but cleared him under an amnesty that the Russian parliament passed in May commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Babitsky, who works for U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, said he would appeal the verdict to Dagestan’s Supreme Court to clear his name.