Russian Lawyer Attacked Days After Court Win

`I link this attack directly to my professional activity in the case of Manana Aslamazyan,` Viktor Parshutkin said.

Two men attacked and robbed a Russian lawyer on Friday, a few days after he successfully defended the head of a media charity against currency smuggling charges.

Lawyer Viktor Parshutkin told Reuters the men fell on him with clubs at around 3 a.m. (2300 GMT) after one of Moscow's unauthorised taxis dropped him off on a dark street far from his central apartment.

"They beat me on the head several times, then one of them hit me especially hard in the face and blatantly shouted 'We had an order to kill you'," Parshutkin said by telephone.

The men stole a bag containing his mobile telephone, identification and a small sum of money, Parshutkin said.

"I link this attack directly to my professional activity in the case of Manana Aslamazyan," he said.

On Tuesday, Parshutkin successfully defended Aslamazyan, the head of a U.S.-funded charity Internews which trained journalists, against charges of smuggling currency worth around $13,179, about 348,000 roubles, into Russia last year.

Parshutkin said he had been at a colleague's apartment discussing business before the attack. He left and hailed a car to go home, but said the driver told him he could only drive him halfway and dropped him off on an empty street.

"It's clear after this week that my phone is being bugged and I am being followed," he said.

Criminal charges against Aslamazyan were effectively dropped after the Russian Constitutional Court ruled that only administrative procedures could be applied to amounts over the legal currency import limit of 250,000 roubles.

Parshutkin said the ruling would affect thousands of similar cases brought by Russian courts. He also told local media that Russia's legal climate could likely change under new President Dmitry Medvedev as he had not worked in the intelligence services, unlike his predecessor Vladimir Putin.

Under Putin, many NGOs came under Kremlin pressure after pro-Western revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine.