ODESA - Odesa's Primorsky District Court was still examining evidence on Wednesday in the trial of Adam Osmayev, the central figure in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The court studied the findings of some forensic tests, the results of a reconstruction of the alleged crime and testimony from one more suspect, Ilya Pyanzin, an Interfax correspondent reported from the court.
Pyanzin had used the name Kovalenko when he gave the testimony, in which he claimed that Osmayev was the organizer of the plotted attack on Putin. The testimony was read out by judge Viktor Pyslar.
Olga Chertok, a lawyer for Osmayev, claimed that Pyanzin gave his testimony in return for a promise to change his status to that of a witness, and that this was why he used an alias.
According to Osmayev, the criminal action against him was largely a humbug.
The crime reconstruction was a fake, he told the court. He claimed that Ukrainian Security Service operatives and other law enforcement personnel had instructed him what to do during it and threatened him into doing it. His former lawyer was absent from the reconstruction procedure but signed all the records of it.
Osmayev’s partner, Amina Okuyeva, confirmed his claims. She told Interfax that Osmayev’s former lawyer was also absent at a joint interrogation of herself and Osmayev but that records of the questioning bore his signature as well.
Chertok also had a go at forensic experts in connection with acetone peroxide that found in an apartment in Odesa and was the source of the criminal action against Osmayev. Acetone peroxide, a primary high explosive, takes minutes to evaporate and not hours as the experts argued in a report, Chertok said.
The next session in Osmayev’s trial is scheduled for Aug. 30.
