France, Oct. 17 -- France has charged four people over a suspected plot against a Russian dissident, prosecutors said Friday, after a refugee who helped reveal abuses in Russian prisons said he was targeted.

Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian living in France who leads Gulagu.net, a non-governmental organisation that specialises in uncovering Russian abuses, told the French news agency AFP he was the target "of these gangsters, these killers".

France's PNAT national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office has declined to name him, but said it had charged four men aged 26 to 38 with forming a "terrorist association" aiming to harm a person or persons, and was holding them in custody.

It said it had opened an investigation last month into a plan to...