According
to the Kremlin press service, the president signed the decree "based on
the principles of humanity".
MOSCOW, March 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree pardoning Oksana Sevastidi convicted of high treason, the Kremlin press service said.
According
to the press service, the president signed the decree "based on the
principles of humanity". The document says that Sevastidi should be
released so that she does not have to further serve her prison sentence. The
decree takes effect in five days after its official publication.
Meanwhile,
Sevastidi’s defense attorney Yevgeny Smirnov told TASS that despite the pardon,
his client would demand that her sentence be overturned and she be cleared of
the charge.
"In
spite of the pardon, we will continue to fight on so that her sentence is
overturned and she could be acquitted of high treason, since the sentence is
unlawful and should not remain as is," the attorney noted
In March
2016, Sevastidi, born in 1970 in the city of Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk),
was sentenced to seven years behind bars under Article 275 of the Russian
Criminal Code (high treason). In 2008, while in Sochi, she texted an
SMS-message to her acquaintance in Georgia pointing to the movement of military
hardware convoys towards Abkhazia. She has been serving her sentence in a penal
colony in the Ivanovo region.
Source: ITAR-TASS 07-03-2017
