Russia’s Supreme Court upholds sentence for Sentsov, Kolchenko
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the sentences for Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov and activist Oleksandr Kolchenko.
The verdict of the court’s military board has already come into force, Interfax news agency reports.
Earlier, lawyer of Sentsov, Dmitry Dinze, said that the sentence was “the height of injustice and lawlessness” adding that the prosecution exerted pressure on the witnesses.
The motion within the case of Sentsov and Kolchenko was filed with the Supreme Court on September 4.
August 25, Sentsov and Kolchenko were found guilty of creating a terrorist community in the territory of the occupied peninsula. Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years and Kolchenko – to 10 years in a high-security colony.
The activists deny charges and believe their case to be politically motivated. The charge is based on the testimony of two Ukrainians Gennady Afanasyev and Alexey Chirny, who later said they had been tortured and Afanasiev refused to give evidence.
All the people, involved in the case of “Crimean terrorists”, were abducted on the territory of Crimea and taken to Russia. Despite the objections of the defendants, they were tried as the citizens of Russia.
As the Human Rights Information Center reported, lawyer of Crimea resident Oleksandr Kolchenko, Svetlana Sidorkina, was not allowed to visit her client who stayed in the remand prison No. 4 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
