The Supreme ‘court’ of Crimea has announced the verdict of Ivan Tereshchenko and Vasyl Dmytryuk, who were captured by Russian occupation troops in Mariupol. The court found them guilty of kidnapping and illegal seizure of a vessel while performing their duties as border guards. Judge Sergei Pogrebnyak announced that both defendants received 17 years of imprisonment each, of which the first three years they will serve in prison and the rest in a high-security colony. This was reported to human rights activists by relatives of political prisoners, writes ‘Crimean process’.
The names of the defendants remained hidden throughout the trial. The consideration of the case lasted 15 sessions, and the judicial Board was in the deliberation room for 5 days.
We shall remind you that in March 2018, Ukrainian border guards detained the Kerch fishing ship Nord in the waters of the Sea of Azov. The ship and its crew had documents issued by the occupation authorities, which the Ukrainian services do not recognise. As a result, the ship was arrested and the fishermen were brought to administrative responsibility for violating the border regime. After the court proceedings, they all returned to Kerch. Ivan Tereshchenko, an officer of the Onyks border guard ship, and Vasyl Dmitriuk, the head of the border inspection team, were captured by Russia in the encircled Mariupol and for a long time were held not as prisoners of war, but as civilians. Subsequently, they were accused of ‘kidnapping and seizure of the vessel Nord’.