Crimea’s Supreme Court has found Ukrainian citizen Yevgeny Panov guilty of the illegal trade in arms and plotting subversive acts in the region and sentenced him to eight years in prison.
"The court rules to find Yevgeny Panov guilty and sentence him to eight years in a strict-security prison," Judge Andrei Paliy announced, reading out the verdict.
The prosecutors demanded sentencing Panov to ten years and a half in a strict-security prison.
The convict’s lawyer Olga Dinze told journalists after the verdict was read out that the defense team would file an appeal to Russia’s Supreme Court. ‘We will appeal against the verdict in the Supreme Court of Russia," TASS cited her as saying.
On August 10, 2016, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the detention of a group of saboteurs in Crimea. Apart from that, it said it had prevented terrorist attacks in Crimea that had been plotted by Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate. According to the FSB, the targets of the terrorist attacks were Crimea’s critical infrastructure and vital facilities. Two men, Andrei Zakhtey and Yevgeny Panov, were detained.
The Crimean Supreme Court had been examining the case against Panov since April 16. The defendant refused to plead guilty.
