Crimea Supreme Court sentences Ukrainian citizen for treason News
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Crimea Supreme Court sentences Ukrainian citizen for treason

The Supreme Court of Crimea has sentenced Ukrainian Ivan Yatskin to an 11-year sentence on treason charges. The Russian government alleges that Yatskin had transferred secret information of Russian officials to the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU). Despite being Ukrainian, Yatskin was charged under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code due to Crimea’s status as Russia-annexed.

Russian Federal Security Service officers arrested Yatskin in his house in mid-October 2019. He has since been detained in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow. The treason and spying charges allow the Russian government to try the case behind closed doors, meaning that the trial’s details will not be published. Yatskin’s lawyer posted on Facebook that his client has continued to deny his guilt and that they plan to appeal the charges.

Because of the non-disclosure of the state trial, the Court did not reveal the contents of the espionage to the public. The SBU released an official statement that Yatskin did not liaise secret information with the department and regarded the arrest as ‘groundless.’

Yatskin was considered a political prisoner by the Memorial Human Rights Centre due to the ambiguity of Article 275. Over the past few years, there have been several Article 275  treason charges indicted by the Russian government against scientists, officials, and soldiers. The Ukrainian Parliament’s Human Rights Ombudsman Liudmyla Denisova has stated on Facebook that: 

“Today, the so-called Supreme Court of Crimea controlled by the Russian occupation authorities passed an illegal sentence to Ukrainian citizen Ivan Yatskin in a fabricated criminal case over alleged collection and transfer of information, which constitutes Russia’s state secret, to Ukraine… This illegal sentence passed by the so-called court is a demonstration of systemic political repressions by the occupying power against our citizens, who freely express their pro-Ukrainian views in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea”

The Crimean Human Rights Group has stated that the arrest is politically charged in a monitoring review session. They also said that Yatksin requires medical help and has not received any while in detention.

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