Former chess grandmaster and opposition political activist Garry Kasparov has said he will not come back to Russia because his freedom to subsequently leave the country could be curtailed.

      “Right now I have serious doubts that if I return to Moscow I will be able to travel back.” Kasparov told a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday, according to an audio recording posted on his personal website. “For the time being I refrain from returning to Russia.”

      Kasparov linked the risk of his detention with an investigation into the actions of protestors who clashed with police on the eve of Putin’s presidential inauguration last year; a case which the opposition insists is politically motivated.

      The political activist’s announcement comes less than a week after a prominent economist Sergei Guriev fled Russia, fearing arrest for his work on a report heavily criticizing the jailing of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.